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Gambia: The Implications of Jammeh's HIV/Aids Project
The Gambia Echo (Raleigh)
OPINION
7 March 2007
Posted to the web 8 March 2007
Demba Baldeh, Seattle Wa
The President of the West African State of The Gambia Yahya Jammeh has once again shocked the entire world. This time not his claim of finding mineral oil reserves in The Gambia; not his threat of burying citizens of The Gambia six feet deep, nor is it a promise to turn The Gambia into an economic heaven, but his shocking day break announcement to have found a cure for the deadly HIV/AIDS disease.
The President, after revealing his spiritual discovery to a select group of foreign diplomats, medical personnel, other interest groups and staff of the Ministry of Health, informed the audience that his treatment is a combination of words from the Holly Quran and herbal concoctions. Without wasting anytime or waiting for reaction from the scientific or diplomatic community, Jammeh proceeded to set a timetable for receiving his first batch of HIV patients. His experimental treatment has since begun attracting worldwide controversy, as this essay will show.
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This earnest commencement of treatment on patients supposedly with HIV/AIDS by President Jammeh sent electrical shock waves across the globe especially, to the scientific world and the medical community, who have been working for years without a cure for this global pandemic. The news prompted online Gambian newspapers and forums to scramble for words to describe the President's sudden claim. Many received the news with disbelief and amazement, while others went up to the extent of calling him insane, crazy, and weird.
The news additionally compelled western news media like UK's Sky News to send a reporter to The Gambia to interview the President on his claim. That interview was conducted while the President was treating one of his patients with local herbs. His response to the Sky News reporter revealed a discomfort from the President on his willingness to share his evidence or lack thereof in convincing not only the world, but also even his patients about the discovery of his treatment. For a moment, the interview showed the President's arrogance normally displayed by African dictators who think they are not answerable to anybody, not even to the international community much more to their people.
Other Western news outlets like the Star tribune in Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota, The Seattle Post Intelligencer in Seattle, The state of Washington among others, all weighed in describing the President's claim as weird and unusual. The President was quoted saying, "Whatever you do, there are bound to be skeptics, but I can tell you, my method is foolproof, mine is not an argument, mine is a proof. It's a declaration. I can cure AIDS and I will."
The President's demeanor revealed a confident yet angry looking man. The reporter Emma Hurd appeared bewildered and certainly shocked by the President's blunt response without any scientific proof to his preposterous claim.
As the world continues to be baffled by this unusual declaration not only from a sitting President, but also someone who is neither medically trained nor legally licensed to practice medicine, there is growing cause for concern on the impact of this treatment on these allegedly HIV/AIDS positive patients. The biggest concern is that the President stops his patients from taking the anti-retroviral drugs that are so far known to be the most effective drug against the HIV virus that causes AIDS disease.
These expensive drugs are part of an aid package supplied free of charge by the World Bank through the Global Fund for Treatment of Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM) to hundreds of HIV infected patients in The Gambia. These drugs are said to be very expensive in other parts of the world and many African governments cannot afford to purchase these drugs for the growing HIV/AIDS population in their countries. Aids activists in The Gambia fear that if more patients stop taking their drugs then the Global Fund would no longer be available to these people who are in dire need of treatment to keep their hopes alive.
Another threat and probably the most disturbing about this whole declaration by President Jammeh, is the impact his promise of treatment will have on thousands of HIV/AIDS infected mothers and their young children in The Gambia. HIV/AIDS is not only known to systematically destroy the human immune system, but also comes with other social consequences to society.
It is evident that many HIV/AIDS infected patients live with complete lost of hope in accomplishing anything in life. They wake up everyday thinking about their mortality and how they are going to make it to another day without being isolated and dehumanized by their own family members simply because they are HIV infected victims. Majority of these victims are innocent babies and children who have no hope of getting out of the house into the play ground, much more going to school to get a decent education simply because they are sick day in and day out, and are sometimes without a healthy parent to look after them let alone provide the basic necessities of life.
The magnitude of the emotional distress of living life without hope on any human being, especially, parents, is to say the least, immeasurable. It is base on this emotional impact of giving thousands of these innocent victims a false hope of a cure for HIV/AIDS, that many call President Jammeh's declaration into question and a cause for concern. Did the President think about the psychological impact that his treatment method of trial and error would have on these peoples' lives? Did he think about the confusion and anarchy that his announcement have on HIV/AIDS activists who are working tirelessly to educate ordinary Gambians of the danger of this monstrous disease?
Furthermore, can and would the President walk into the houses of Santa Yallah Support Society and other local HIV/AIDS support groups in The Gambia, look into the eyes of hundreds of victims and promise them a cure for a virus that has put their lives on the path to hastened mortality? Can he restore the hopes of these innocent young moms with their babies literally dying before their time from the hardship confronting them on a daily basis? Would it not make sense for any decent human being to have some degree of evidence for a cure for such a devastating disease before declaring it publicly?
Finally, it is normal for the world to receive such publicity with a degree of skepticism, especially, one coming from a scientifically uninitiated person. What is even more abnormal is that this declaration is coming from a sitting President who is presiding over a political environment that allows such mysterious, unsubstantiated evidence to go unchallenged. The Gambian Ministry of Health and the Secretary of State's unconditional support of the President without a scientific proof of his cure certainly did not come without an embarrassment to our public health system.
The prudent thing for Dr.Tamsier Mbowe, the Secretary of State for Health to have done was to give the President the benefit of the doubt on his claim, but stick with the scientific evidence and caution against risky behaviors until a substantiated scientific evidence for cure is provided. The Secretary should have advised his Commander- in- Chief that the country and its citizens have more credibility and technical assistance to lose should there be no evidence of a cure. The Medical Research Council (MRC), one of the best medical research institutes in West Africa, should have been engaged in determining whether in fact, the President's method has produced the much needed cure for the HIV virus that modern science is yet to discover. This mature and professional way of handing the President's claim would have given our nation the benefit of the doubt, respect, and positive publicity around the globe on this controversial claim.
It is important to conclude that Gambia has everything to gain should in fact one of it's citizens finds a cure for this deadly virus, but for now and until it is proven otherwise, it only causes us embarrassment and negative publicity the combined effects of which two sends our proud citizens into hiding.
