HIV/AIDS Cure News: Ghana's AIDS Commission Meets with Traditional Healers Claiming to Have a Cure for the Disease
Ghana's AIDS Commission has met with the country's traditional healers in order to shed light on the claims that some of them have a cure for HIV/AIDS.
According to reports, the meeting was meant to clarify the claims of some traditional healers that they can cure HIV/AIDS as some of HIV patients have been abandoning their antiretroviral drugs in favor of traditional medications.
"We are going to monitor the situation because we realized that we have lost to follow-ups in our clinics. We will see how it is going and we may have to meet them again and do further dialoguing so that we all come to a conclusion on this matter," Olivia Graham Acheampong, Technical Coordinator for the Commission, said.
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Stephen Osei Agyepong Nyedua, Ashanti Regional Director for Traditional Medicine Practice at the Health Ministry, said that he wants the authorities to support the traditional healers as they claim that some of the herbs can manage HIV/AIDS. According to Nyedua, there is no mutual trust between traditional healers and the orthodox medicine practitioners as the latter think that the former has nothing to offer due to their lack of knowledge.
"We want proper collaboration between the two, to ensure that what our people are saying, they will take into consideration. They should invite them and if it even requires support to research further into the claims and ensure that those drugs go through the proper checks and processes," Nyedua said.
For Nora Tei-Larbie, Ashanti Regional Director of Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), though, only western medicine should be the only treatment for HIV/AIDS as it is the only registered management for the disease, and that the medicine promoted by traditional healers are not registered. While Tei-Larbei acknowledges the tremendous benefits of herbal medicine in the health sector, she maintains that it is just but proper for the products to be subjected to clinical trials in order to ensure the safety of the consumers.
Apart from giving the traditional healers to the chance to explain their claims, the meeting between the two parties also provided a platform for the traditional healers to be educated on the proper protocol when registering their drugs with the FDA.
