Korle-Bu throws challenge to herbalists

The Chief Executive of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Dr Henry Holdbrook-Smith, has thrown a challenge to herbalists who claim to have a cure for HIV/AIDS to submit their preparations for clinical tests at the hospital.

He, however, stated that such drugs should have been registered with the Food and Drugs Board and certified by the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine at Mampong Akuapem.

Speaking in an interview on the sale of herbal drugs to HIV/AIDS patients and their relatives at the Fevers Unit of the hospital, Dr Holdbrook-Smith said it is difficult for relatives who are anxious to ease the suffering of their loved ones to understand that a combination of orthodox medicine and herbal preparations for the treatment of ailments may result in complication.

He said even though the hospital frowns on this practice, the relatives manage to administer herbal drugs to patients at the least opportunity. Dr Holdbrook-Smith said the scourge of the disease is a worry to health authorities and particularly to practitioners, and “we are all desperately looking for a cure,” adding that “we aware of herbal drugs which can manage opportunistic diseases of patients such as malaria, diarrhoea and anaemia.

“There is still no empirical evidence that any herbal drug can cure an HIV positive patient. This is why, in my opinion, we should give patients to herbalist who have claims of cure to ascertain the truth or otherwise of their claim”, he stressed.

The chief executive further stated that this will also help flush out the fake herbalists who are using claims of cure to exploit patients. Asked whether this does not flout the ethics of the medical profession, Dr Holdbrook-Smith argued that “what we are all looking for is a lasting solution to this pandemic and people are already secretly using the herbal drugs in the hospitals anyway.”

On the issue of patency, he said, when proven potent the hospital will assist such herbalists on modalities to acquire patency, adding that most herbalists have an erroneous notion that claiming for patency is cumbersome and expensive.

“It is not expensive to claim patency for one’s original products. “The country has a qualified patency lawyer, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, who has proven to be very effective and up to the task,” he said.

Dr Holdbrook-Smith described the rate at which HIV/AIDS cases are reported in the hospital as very scary and that apart from some referrals from other hospitals and the ones detected upon request by doctors at the hospital, most of them come at the advanced stage of the disease.

He said last year, the Out-Patient Department (OPD) of the hospital recorded 1,641 HIV/AIDS cases out of which 235 died. He said apart from children who contracted it at birth, the victims were between the ages of 16 to 45.

According to Dr Holdbrook-Smith, out of the total number of victims who contracted the disease last year, 751 were males with 1013 being females. He said since there is a high possibility of preventing mother-to child transmission, it is important to promote voluntary testing, particularly among expectant mothers and prospective pregnant women.