THE sense of dread spawned by the toll of millions worldwide who have died from the effect of AIDS is difficult to assess. Extreme bewilderment must accompany news that someone is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is more than likely that the infected person will be put in a state of mind to clutch at whimsical claims of a cure.It is therefore a great pity that there are "herbalists" who would exploit people, when they are at their most desperate, with "secret blends of herbs" purporting to be cure for HIV/AIDS - a disease which bona fide scientists are yet to find a cure.
Even a cursory understanding of how HIV attacks the body's complex immune system, killing its "fighter cells" - the CD4 - would lead one to dismiss claims that a concoction of herbs, bottled outside a controlled environment, could achieve a cure.
It is important therefore that the National AIDS Committee (NAC), in a letter to this newspaper, has stated clearly that there are no known cures for HIV/AIDS. In recent weeks, there have been advertisements by herbalists making claims of a cure for this condition and many others which medical science is still researching.
Our daily editions in recent weeks have chronicled the despair of a sick Montego Bay woman who wasted money on herbalists making false claims.
The NAC says that these false claims are insensitive to the difficult and emotional challenges faced by those infected with HIV and distorts the work which it is trying to do, with limited resources, to dispel the myths surrounding AIDS.
As the number of those infected with HIV continues to mount each day, we believe that the monitoring agencies should support the NAC's work by apprehending those herbalists who would make false claims.
We note that in another area of the health sector the authorities have been spurred into action by an expose in this newspaper about "open-air pharmacies" selling illegal prescription drugs on the sidewalks of downtown Kingston.
It is reprehensible in the extreme that unscrupulous persons would seek to profit from the ailments of the unwary be it by way of cheap drugs or the dread of AIDS.
