Govt dismisses Magaya HIV cure claim

The government has dismissed PHD founder, Prophet Walter Magaya’s claims that he has found a cure for HIV and AIDS.

Magaya yesterday held a press conference saying that he has found a cure for HIV and AIDS called Aguma, claims which the ministry or health and child care are dispelling.

Briefing journalists in Harare today, the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Cde Monica Mutsvangwa highlighted that the Ministry of Health and Child Care has no record of the Aguma medicine.

“There are processes and procedures that a medicine should go through before it is recognised as effective and safe to use by patients. This is done prior to registration and the results are submitted to the medicines regulator. At this point, neither the medicine register nor the register of clinical trials kept by the Ministry of Health has such a record,” she said.

Minister Muntsvagwa also urged all the people who are currently on anti retroviral therapy (ART) and those who will be initiated on ART to take their medicines as prescribed by health personnel.

The sentiments were also echoed by National AIDS Council (NAC) CEO, Dr Tapuwa Magure who said currently there is no known cure for HIV, adding that any new medicines should first be subjected to rigorous clinical trials before being made available to the public for consumption.

Zimbabwe currently has an estimated 1.2 million people receiving life-saving anti retroviral drugs.