Last weekend, I sat glued to my TV set watching CNN Jeff Koinange’s exposé on the AIDS situation in the Gambia, one of the poorest nations of the world.
I was flustered by the claims being made. I still am.
His Excellency, the President of the Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, had invited the CNN team to come and see the wonders being wrought by an herbal concoction he had personally formulated for the treatment and cure of AIDS. The constituents of the concoction were revealed to him in a dream!
Many Gambians have already abandoned their HAART for this miracle cure and the risk for resistance will certainly skyrocket because many antiretroviral agents are unsparing.
CNN’s repeated efforts to interview the president failed and attempts to subject the concoction to standard scientific testing met a brick wall. An expatriate who spoke out against the president’s farcical claims was thrown out of the country within 48 hours. Even more disheartening is the fact that the health minister, a physician trained in the West, swore on set that the concoction can cure AIDS.
What is wrong with Africa?
Why has his Excellency forgotten so soon similar claims made by Thabo Mbeki and the former South African health minister? Did his Excellency ever hear of Nigeria’s Dr Abalaka? Why return to ideas and claims that belong in the Stone Age? Why belittle the threat of a scourge currently devastating us, the world’s poor? Why would the Gambia, a country with a Medical Research Council which is home to prolific, world-renowned researchers drag Africa backward in her quest to see the end of AIDS?
Why?
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