Doctor appeals to herbalists to have anti-AIDS drugs tested

Ho, Dec 18, GNA - A doctor has appealed to herbalists who claim they have herbal antidotes to the HIV/AIDS virus to make available samples of their preparations for testing and documentation.

Dr Emmanuel Mensah, a Former Director General of Ghana Health Service, said this at the close of a three-day workshop on HIV/AIDS in Ho for 25 Traditional Healers from the Volta Region.

He said preparations found to be efficacious would be credited to those who presented them and that that there should be no fears about being dispossessed of the rights to their inventions.

Dr Mensah expressed regret that though awareness about the disease was as high as 98 per cent people remained adamant about giving up the risk behaviours that exposed them to the infection.

He suggested that the Ghana Aids Commission used herbalists as a major medium to disseminate programmes aimed at changing such risk behaviours since many people use the services of traditional healers.