BANJUL, Gambia. Feb. 20, 2007
Gambia's AIDS "Cure" Causes Alarm
Gambian President Says Green Paste, A Bitter Drink, And Banana Can Cure AIDS
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Gambia's President, Yahya Jammeh, prays while administering his alleged herbal HIV cure to a patient at the State House in Banjul, Gambia, Feb. 15, 2007. (AP)
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Photo Essay World AIDS Day Marked by religious services, boisterous demonstrations and warnings that more needs to be done.
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Waiting in plastic chairs for treatment at the presidential compound last week, Jammeh's patients said they don't need lab results to tell them they feel better.
"It feels as if the president took the pain out of my body," Ousman Sowe, 54, told the AP. Diagnosed with HIV in 1996, he is among the first nine men and women Jammeh has treated and has been under the Gambian leader's care for nearly a month.
"My appetite has come back and I have gained weight," said Lamin Ceesay, thin from a nine-year battle with HIV.
Jammeh has refused to disclose details of his herbal concoction, saying only that it uses seven plants, "three of which are not from Gambia."
Treatment begins with the president applying the green paste, stored inside a deli-style plastic container. Next comes a gray-colored solution contained in an old Evian bottle and splashed on the patient's skin. This is followed by a yellowish, tea-like brew which patients are asked to drink. The therapy is administered many times over several weeks.
After the treatment session last week, Jammeh emerged carrying a tall wooden staff, a string of Islamic prayer beads and a leather-bound Quran. In front of him, 30 new patients waited on lawn chairs, drawn from the roughly 20,000 people currently living with HIV in Gambia.
He told them that during treatment they must cease drinking alcohol, tea and coffee. They also cannot eat kola nuts or have sex.
Jammeh then held up the Quran, pointing it at each of the patients: "In the name of Allah, in three to 30 days you will all be cured," he said.
The patients were then herded into a minibus and driven to an empty hospital ward on the outskirts of the capital, where they will stay in dormitory-style rooms with sheets covering the windows.
Lying on a mat on the tiled floor in the hospital ward, a 19-year-old girl struggled to say her name, spitting gray-colored phlegm into her scarf. Like everyone else in the concrete ward, she is banned from taking anti-retroviral drugs.
Nearby was 25-year-old Amadou Jallow, who recently quit his job at a tourist hotel after his mother was diagnosed with AIDS. In his savings account is $296 — enough, he said, to last him the 30 days Jammeh promises it will take to heal his mother.
"I'm just afraid that, what if my account runs low?" he said. "But by then, I think she will be cured."
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 24 CommentsPosted by olebd at 01:40 PM : Feb 21, 2007
Bush? Cmon, gimme a break. Every politician since Hoover has promised us health care, not 1 has delivered, not even the Kennedy's.
that being said if it did work everything in our governments greedy hands would be done to prevent this knowledge from spreading.......and this article would not be here...
just another nut job people
"maybe scott and his friends should go over their and try to see if they can spread their disease"
Posted by Agnim
stupid.
Posted by cbscrash07 at 07:47 PM : Feb 20, 2007"
Yes, with education, the people will realize that they are being ripped off by drug companies after the corporate agents first engineered the spread of the AIDS among the people!
On whose authority do you base this? There are things that happen in this world daily that medicine can't explain. Does that prove science is bunk? No. Does that prove God exists? No, but to a person who was being measured for a coffin last week who is now being sized for a wedding dress this week - they don't need a doctor with a PhD to authorize and document their belief.
Posted by nyckate
What are you talking about? You are delusional.
STAY THE COURSE, DUDE!!
First off, How can any of you disregard what this man is saying? This ism't a religious healer. This is the leader of a country using medicine on people. He isn't some high priest in a tent praying over people and doing some slight of hand to remove cancer.
Just because his claims are outrageous doesn't immediately make them false. Be skeptical of course, but don't immediately label it.
Second, If this isn't a cure, it's at least better treatment than the supposed anti-retroviral drugs that "treat" AIDS. Those drugs make AIDS worse and hurt the patient. Taking the people off the anti-retroviral drugs and feeding them all natural foods and medicines is a GOOD THING. Obviously these patients are gaining weight and feeling better. He may think he found a cure, when he simply found out the truth about anti-retroviral drugs.
Third, I think it's sad that the news story and the commentors try to play this guy up as a religious wacko. His AIDS treatment has nothing to do with religion. This is just another story that tries to make Islam look like a fanatic religion. I want to see more news stories picking on the Christian wackos. Praise Allah.
Religion has its place in my life and I personally have no doubt that prayers and belief do see one through traumatic times - but prayer will NOT cure illness or defects or genetic problems - they simply give you the inner strength to go through the medical treatments needed for aides or cancer or heart disease or diabetes treatments - they are not meant to be in place.
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