Gambian President Yahya Jammeh plans to build a hospital to administer a herbal treatment to AIDS patients in the country. Five years ago Jammeh claimed to have discovered a cure to the disease, a mixture of boiled herbs. The procedure was criticized by leaders of Western medicine for giving false hope to AIDS patients, and for being potentially unsafe.
“I intend to build a 1,111-bed multipurpose hospital dedicated to treatment of HIV and AIDS patients,” Jammeh said during his New Year’s address. “With this project coming to fruition, we intend to treat 10,000 HIV/AIDS patients every six months through natural medicine.”
Reuters reports that he expects the hospital to open in 2015. In October, Jammeh claimed that 68 people had successfully received his natural AIDS treatment and had been discharged, the latest group since he announced the remedy in 2007. The United Nations and World Health Organization have condemned the president’s treatments because it requires patients to stop taking conventional medicines, leaving them potentially more vulnerable to disease.
Gambians are less at risk for HIV infection than other African nation, with the United Nations reporting just a 2 percent infection rate among the country’s small population. Jammeh has led the country for almost two decades.
