Gambia's president claims he has cure for AIDS 'Miracle' concoction of green paste, bitter drink and bananas raises alarm

Cabdace Feit / AP Lamin Ceesay awaits his herbal HIV treatment by Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh, at Serrekunda Hospital in Banjul, Gambia.

BANJUL, Gambia - From the pockets of his billowing white robe, Gambia's president pulls out a plastic container, closes his eyes in prayer and rubs a green herbal paste onto the rib cage of the patient - a concoction he claims is a cure for AIDS.

He then orders the thin man to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.

"Whatever you do, there are bound to be skeptics, but I can tell you my method is foolproof," President Yahya Jammeh told an Associated Press reporter, surrounded by bodyguards in his presidential compound. "Mine is not an argument, mine is a proof. It's a declaration. I can cure AIDS and I will."

In a continent suffering from the world's worst AIDS epidemic, Jammeh's claims of a miracle cure are alarming public health workers already struggling against faith-healers dispensing herbal remedies from inside thatched huts.

The biggest concern is that the Gambian leader requires patients to cease their anti-retroviral drugs, a move that risks weakening their immune systems and making them even more prone to infection, said Dr. Antonio Filipe Jr., head of the World Health Organization in neighboring Senegal.

WHO: 'There is no cure for AIDS'

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Although the HIV rate is relatively low in Gambia compared to other African nations - 1.3 percent of the country's 1.6 million people are infected - the president's claim has left international health organizations in a bind.

WHO's Filipe was diplomatic about Jammeh's claims, saying his organization respects the president's point of view. But, he added: "As the World Health Organization, we would like to state quite clearly the following - No. 1: so far there is no cure for AIDS."

Jammeh, a 41-year-old former army colonel who wrested gained control in a 1994 coup, says his treatment is entirely voluntary and argues that his medications cannot be mixed with other drugs because "I don't want any complications."

The claim of a cure has prompted comparisons to the South African minister of health who won international ridicule last year for suggesting that a diet of garlic, beet root and lemon juice is more effective than anti-retroviral drugs. South African President Thabo Mbeki has been accused of not addressing the epidemic: His government did not provide AIDS drugs until a lawsuit by AIDS activists forced it to in 2002.

CONTINUED: 'The president took the pain out of my body.'

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