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Rarotonga, Cook Islands - PIAF calls on herbal therapy organization and practitioners to stop misleading public The Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation (PIAF) is calling on traditional herbal therapy organizations and practitioners in the region to stop misleading people living with HIV (PLHIV) and the general public in the Pacific with their respective herbal products, which they claim have cured PLHIV.

PIAF’s call relates to certain traditional herbal therapy organizations and religious associations in the region that have claimed that their herbal products in the form of juice have cured and eradicated the HIV virus from PLHIV. Some of the claims have been reported in the media and through other social media networks such as facebook with testimonies of people cured from HIV.

In Papua New Guinea, Brian Leornard Golight Marshall from the Yahweh-Jesus Fellowship claimed that his treatment in the form of electricity waves have cured HIV, were a PLHIV is electrocuted daily and prescribed bottles of herbal juice.

PIAF is aware and appreciates that a number of traditional and herbal treatments may have qualities in helping to improve the health condition of a PLHIV. It may also help someone who is taking the Antiretroviral (ART) drugs, but there is no proven evidence to this date of anyone healed as a result of traditional or herbal medicine alone.

PIAF is appealing to organisations and practitioners who claim otherwise to back up their claims with scientific evidence, for instance, the person who claims to have been cured from HIV must provide test results that was positive and became negative as a result of taking the specific traditional or herbal medicine.

HIV is a chronic disease and the only treatment proven by science and medicine to treat the virus load in a PLHIV is the ART drugs. Scientists have not found a cure for HIV, but the ART drug prolongs the life of a PLHIV, decreases the virus load and protects their immune system from other
opportunistic infections.

ART drugs have also helped HIV positive mothers to have HIV negative children, and PLHIV to stay healthy and continue with a normal life, given that they stay committed to their drugs.

Marketing and promoting such herbal therapies that have no scientific backing will only put the lives of PLHIV at risk, as this may encourage them to go off their ART drugs, thus making their treatment ineffective or deter them from ART totally.

PIAF is also calling on the media to report responsibly and avoid claims of HIV and AIDS cures, unless they are accompanied with medical evidence