A leading researcher Wednesday issued an alert over claims that an anti-cancer drug has proven to be an effective Aids cure.
Dr Patrick Orege of the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kisumu urged the public to remain cautious, warning that there was no cure for Aids yet.
Two patients were purportedly cured of Aids after being treated by Dr Barasa Situma, who administered methotrexate — an anti-cancer treatment drug — and a cocktail of other drugs in Nairobi.
“The purported cure on the two patients is referred to as a ‘chance-finding’ and an interesting observation which is however not (beneficial to the public) since it involves only two patients.
{Photo: Dr Simon Barasa Situma of the Kenya Polytechnic University College. }
“In any case, we don’t know the number of other patients who were administered with the drugs and failed,” Dr Orege said.
During a previous media interview, Dr Situma claimed the HIV patients had turned negative after being tested at three laboratories — Cresent Medical Aid Kenya, Lancet Lab and Kemri in Nairobi.
“The public should not be duped into using the drug which is a known treatment for cancer and not HIV,” Dr Orege, who is also a former director of the National Aids Control Council said.
At the same time, he dismissed the decision by Dr Situma to use the services of three laboratories in determining the HIV results of the patients as “inconsistent with research methodology”.
“To achieve consistent results, Dr Situma should have utilised one laboratory and enrolled between 200 to 300 patients in his trials instead of being enthusiastic in announcing the results involving two patients,” he said.
Dr Orege continued: “I would like to advise Dr Situma to develop a proposal on the treatment and get in touch with medical scientists at either the University of Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital or Kenya Medical Research Institute.”
He warned that methotrexate was known to have adverse effects in the treatment of cancer and should be administered with “a lot of care”.
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