Africa’s Dr Cure-Alls: Men of God or quacks?

People claiming they can cure anything under the African sun are hardly an endangered species. But evangelists seem to have perfected the art, with faith-based healers among the more notorious.

Superstition can often be hard currency in Africa. Nowhere else is a distrust in western medicine still as rife, despite advances in technology and the proven efficacy of drugs.

It becomes even more muddled when the subject is a terminal condition with HIV-Aids, known to have no cure, ranking way up there when it comes to the irrational belief in non-pharmaceutical cures.

Sometimes this belief has tragic consequences when advocated by a government. Harvard University researchers in 2008 projected that 300,000 avoidable deaths were a direct consequence of former President Thabo Mbeki’s Aids denialist policies.

His minister for health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has since died, advocated the use of garlic and vegetables to check the spread of the virus, earning herself international criticism and the moniker “Dr Beetroot”.

People claiming they can cure anything under the African sun are hardly an endangered species. But evangelists seem to have perfected the art, with faith-based healers among the more notorious.

The tens of thousands who have trooped to Samunge village in Tanzania’s Loliondo area to partake of Ambilikile Mwasapile’s boiled herbs are a prime example of the power of that intangible called hope.

HIV-Aids is high on the list of conditions that patients believe Mwasapile’s extract can cure. Given that there is still no known cure, anyone claiming they can cure the condition will always attract the kind of attention that has been lavished on him.

But the former Lutheran pastor’s claims that his brew can cure diseases that normally portend long spells of hospitalisation and huge medical bills “as directed by God” a “faith healing” programme that claimed that people could be cured of conditions such as Aids and cancer.

The church, headed by Pastor Chris Oyaklihome, said that it had paid 2.6 million rand ($380,000) for the 24-minute spot to run for a year.

The ban was triggered by a complaint by campaign group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) which termed the church’s claims as “life-destroying”.

“Quackery of this nature is not merely misleading. It is life-destroying,” said TAC spokesperson Nathan Geffen, according to the country’s National Mirror publication.

The standards body agreed to stop the programme, acknowledging that it was relaying false hope. “ASA will be failing in its duty if it allows miracle cure (a phenomenon that is known to occur in very few instances) to be touted as an everyday cure that is available at Christ Embassy.”

The church is appealing the ruling. The ASA had earlier in 2008 demanded the withdrawal of an advertisement promoting Ubhejane, a brown liquid mix made from 89 herbs and potent against a wide range of diseases, according to its formulator Zeblon Gwala.

The advert claimed that the concoction reduced viral load and boosted immunity. Gwala advised that the mix should not be taken at the same time with anti-retrovirals.

Medical tests subsequently found the claim false, dashing the hopes of thousands of South African HIV-positive patients who had taken it.

Abune Paulos, the incumbent and often controversial Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church has also been caught up in the Aids cure mill.

In 2007, thousands of mainly HIV positive Ethiopian pilgrims sought to shower in holy water from a stream flowing below the church, which is set 10,000 feet above sea level.

The pilgrims had to kneel naked in front of priests who drenched them with the stream water from jerricans. At the same time, the church encouraged the pilgrims to decline all other medication, while claiming to have already cured hundreds.

Paulos, a serving president of the World Council of Churches (one of seven), has since retreated from this position and asked hopefuls to try both options.

“What we are saying is taking the drugs is neither a sin nor a crime. Both the Holy Water and the medicine are gifts of God. They neither contradict nor resist each other.”

But as faith healers go, perhaps The Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh would arguably rank as the most (in)famous.

President Jammeh has for long claimed he can cure Aids ­–as long as it is on a Thursday- through a “mandate” acquired from his father. Asthma sufferers are cured on Saturdays.

His mix is derived from a secret and motley recipe of fruits, herbs, ointments and prayer. The Gambian state television often beams pictures of the president treating his citizens as he chants verses from the Koran.

President Jammeh is descended from a proud line of herbalists, and hundreds of his citizens often wait outside state house for hours on end, some collapsing in the heat.

“I get rid of the virus from the body of the human being and that’s what I do. There are people who come in a very bad condition.

Knowing that they only have their hope in me is a big burden. Morally, spiritually, and psychologically,” he said.

No evidence of the efficacy of his treatment has been adduced with almost all medical experts dismissing the regimen as extremely dangerous.

But the Gambian government has tended to give them short shrift. United Nations official Farai Gwadzimba was ordered out in 2007 after suggesting that the President’s medical work was likely to encourage risky sexual behaviour.

Avert Aids, a not-for-profit initiative that runs avert.org, the most popular HIV\Aids website in the world, says it is easy to see why a HIV-positive person might want to believe in an HIV-Aids cure.

“When someone has a life-threatening illness they may clutch anything to stay alive. And even when antiretroviral treatment is available, it is far from an easy solution. Drugs must be taken every day for the rest of a person’s life, often causing unpleasant side effects.

“A one-off cure to eradicate the virus once and for all is much more appealing. Many people would prefer a remedy that is “natural” or “traditional,” says the organisation.

Avert Aids says that often people who invest in unproven potions have less to spend on real medicines and food; that the promotion of these remedies serves to undermine HIV interventions.

“People who believe in a cure are less likely to fear becoming infected with HIV, and hence less likely to take precautions.”

The campaign group warns that people should ascertain the credentials of a person claiming to cure such conditions, and be on the lookout for sensationalists.

“Reputable scientists and doctors don’t use sensational terms such as “miracle breakthrough,” says the group.

“Many inventors won’t reveal what goes into their so-called cures. Ask yourself why this might be. Could it be that their methods wouldn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny?”

One thing however stands up to scrutiny: Africa certainly hasn’t seen the last of these “miracle” cures.