CLERIC DISCOVERS HIV/Aids `CURE` IN TANZANIA

Hundreds of people living with HIV/Aids from different regions yesterday thronged the residence of a former priest with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, Ambilikile Masapila (75), at Samunge village in Ngorongoro District, who claims to have discovered a traditional medicine to cure HIV/AIDS.
The infected people were rushing to the priest, who has branded himself a prophet, seeking for treatment.
According to a statement issued by Masapila, already 15 people who had tested HIV-positive had been cured after using the medicine, adding that the patients, when tested after using the drug, proved to be HIV-negative.
He said the traditional medicine is made up from roots, which God allegedly showed him in dreams since 1991 so that, he could assist people suffering from the disease in Tanzania.
“In the dreams, God showed me a large group of people who had died of Aids and instructed me to give them this traditional medicine. Many people have already used the medicine and the results have been positive,” he said.
He said since the day he dreamed about the medicine, God had allegedly been instructing him to follow certain procedures. Besides the instructions, he said God showed him a tree from which the medicine could be extracted.
“This medicine is provided for free because I was not instructed to do business. It’s free for those who need it, but a patient who needs it should came with a hospital certificate showing that he or she has tested HIV-positive,” he said.
The cleric stressed that it was important for a patient to have total faith in the curative power of the drug and not to take it on a trial basis.
The pastor claimed that since he started administering the medicine last year, 186 had already received the medication, out of whom 15 had been totally cured.
For his part, Ngorongoro district commissioner Elias Wawa Lali confirmed to have heard information about the cleric who claimed to have discovered an anti-HIV drug, but noted that the medicine had yet to be proved scientifically.
He called on patients attending to the pastor’s daily clinics to continue using medically approved ARV’s. He said he was forced to intervene after some patients who were seeking the pastor’s medication hade stopped using life-prolonging drugs offered by the government.
“My office has received information that those who have already used the medication have stop using ARVs and their health has got worse while others have died,” he said, calling on the residents and patients to be patients while the responsible institutions were working to prove the efficacy of the pastor’s drug.