KENYA: Traditional African herbal practitioner and healer doctor Jack Githae advocates herbal treatment of HIV and Aids

Record ID: 362649

  • Title: KENYA: Traditional African herbal practitioner and healer doctor Jack Githae advocates herbal treatment of HIV and Aids
  • Date: 1st March 2002
  • Summary: KABIRUINI FOREST, KENYA (RECENT) (REUTERS) SLV BUSHES AND SKYLINE ZOOM OUT SLV HERBALIST DR. JACK GITHAE AND DAUGHTER WAMBUI ARRIVING IN KABIRUINI FOREST BY CAR (0.12) MV DR. JACK GITHAE GETS OUT OF CAR AND WALKS TO BUSHES; SCU TAKES OUT KNIFE AND COLLECTS HERBS AMONG SHRUBS; SLV GITHAE WALKING INTO KABIRUINI FOREST; GITHAE COLLECTS BARK FROM TREE, EXPLAINING TO DAUGHTER (14 SHOTS) (1.09) (SOUNDBITE)(English) DR. JACK GITHAE SAYING, "After cutting you go down gently, gently avoid interfering with the stem. Just get the portion of the bark you need." (1.22) CU TREE THAT HAS JUST BEEN HARVESTED; SCU HARVESTED BARK (2 SHOTS) (1.33) SOUNDBITE (English) DR. JACK GITHAE SAYING, "This bark will be used for blood cleaning medicine. It may prevent grey hair it may prevent joint ailment that go along with age." (1.40) SCU GITHAE DIGGING UP ROOTS OF AFRICAN ASPARAGUS PLANT SOUNDBITE (English) DR. JACK GITHAE SAYING, "Medicinal plants, some of which we use quite widely in the making of the medicine to tackle both the viral-load and to enhance the immuno-modulation that our HIV patients need." (1.58) SCU HERBS (2 SHOTS) (2.08) (SOUNDBITE)(English): DR. JACK GITHAE SAYING, "My message to our government my message to our people including the HIV patients is that we have the diversity of herbal medicine within our forest that can cure the condition in question. What hasn't been done is to screen our material as it should to formulate a cure for HIV." (2.33) NYERI, KENYA (RECENT) (REUTERS) SCU CHOPPED HERBS; SCU DR. JACK GITHAE PROCESSING HERBS; SCU HERBAL POWDERS; SCU HERBAL TABLETS (11 SHOTS) (3.19) NAIROBI, KENYA (RECENT) (REUTERS) SOUNDBITE (English) PROFESSOR SAM ONGERI MINISTER OF HEALTH SAYING, "It would be difficult to claim or disclaim the results that they are telling us today and I think its vitally important that any claim is put to a scientific test and that what we are intending to go and do." (3.35) SLV GITHAE'S CLINIC IN NAIROBI; MV PATIENTS WAITING INSIDE THE CLINIC; MV JACK GITHAE ATTENDING TO PATIENT; MV GITHAE PRESCRIBING HERBAL MEDICINE (10 SHOTS) (4.27) SOUNDBITE (Kikuyu) GITHUA MRINDA SAYING "If they revert to using traditional medicine people will recover completely. We have seen this medicine is the best. Because you can go to hospitals for 5 years and not get better and then use herbal medicine for 1 year and be healed. We don't use any other kind." (4.45) SOUNDBITE (English) WACHIRA MATHENJI SAYING, "From the records we are talking of fifty-percent effectiveness. We have patient that have come to this clinic after they have tried all other clinics, general or national hospitals without any success, but upon arrival here when they are at 90% going, they actually recover." (5.06) SLV FOREST, DR. JACK GITHAE'S VOICE SAYING, "Miraculous cures from natural pharmacy." (5.17) SOUNDBITE (English) DR. JACK GITHAE SAYING, "We know and we are telling everybody who wants to know that we have drugs that can help and has helped HIV patients. We can turn these drugs in big volumes if they are required and we can facilitate to have those drugs accessed by all those who needs them within Kenya within Africa and all over the world." 17. MV HIV POSITIVE CHILDREN AT NYUMBANI CHILDREN'S HOME, NAIROBI (5.39) MV/SCU HIV POSITIVE CHILDREN AT NYUMBANI CHILDREN'S HOME, NAIROB9 (2 SHOTS) (5.48) SLV/MV GRAVES WITH CROSSES (2 SHOTS) (5.53)
  • Embargoed: 16th March 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NYERI AND NAIROBI, KENYA
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA2U32CNCLW6EGSW3JJ5BDPZDDO
  • Story Text: Doctor Jack Githae, a traditional African herbal practitioner and healer, is a proponent of alternative medicine. He is actively advocating herbal treatment in the management of AIDS and HIV in Kenya. Recently the Kenyan government announced that they would table a bill in parliament to integrate the use of traditional herbal medicine in conventional hospitals.
    These are the slopes of Mount Kenya where generations past and present have come for nourishment, and both spiritual and physical and mental needs were met.
    It is here that renowned herbalist Jack Githae comes at least three times a week to collect bark, roots and even leaves from the hundreds of indigenous trees and shrubs that make these area one of the richest resource in herbal medicine in the Africa and in the world.
    The healer, as he likes to be referred to, always has his handy home-made knife on the ready. His thirty years of experience as herbal practitioner in Kenya and beyond make it very easy for him to spot medicinal trees and shrubs everywhere he looks.
    He comes here to impart knowledge to students like his daughter who are keen to take up the practise of traditional medicine.
    Here he explains how to de-bark a tree with known medicinal qualities.
    "After cutting you go down gently, gently avoid interfering with the stem. Just get the portion of the bark you need," the doctor explains to his daughter student.
    He says it has to be done properly to ensure the survival of the tree for use in the future.
    Dr Githae explains what the bark is commonly used for.
    "This bark will be used for blood cleaning medicine. It may prevent grey hair, it may prevent joint ailments that go along with age."
    He said it is the type of material that his forefathers, grandparents and the rest have used for many years. Safe effective, stimulating and enhancing sustenance of good health and long life.
    It is those attributes he looks for when searching the forests of Kenya in search of medicinal herbs that cure and manage cases of the dreaded AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) and HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.
    He explains: "Medicinal plants, some of which we use quite widely in the making of medicine to tackle both the viral load and to enhance the immuno-modulation that our HIV Patients need."
    Dr Jack Githae's claims that he has been able to sustain HIV/ AIDS patients has come under scathing attack from the medical associations in Kenya and international drug manufacturing companies operating in Africa. The association says that only well-researched herbs with medicinal value should be used in public hospitals.
    Githae agrees saying he'd be happy for studies and screening to be done on his herbs in a bid to formulate a cure for HIV.
    Dr. Githae says that if we could use this cheap natural pharmacy effectively many lives could and can be saved.
    He not only collects but also processes the herbs himself.
    Here in one day he can produce enough medicine for various ailments to last for months. From these different extracts he has come up with combinations that have shown effectiveness in combating and prolonging the lives of those that are inflicted with HIV/AIDS.
    The Kenyan ministry of Health is finally recognising the importance and effectiveness of herbs and is starting to take traditional medicine seriously.
    "It would be difficult to claim or disclaim the results that they are telling us today, and I think it's vitally important that any claim is put to a scientific test and that is what we are intending to go and do," Professor Sam Ongeri, The Minister for Health told Reuters as he tried to dispel claims that the Government of Kenya is not serious enough in the search for a cure to treat or manage the virus.
    In the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, Dr Githae operates a clinic where people from all over East Africa travel hundreds of miles to see him and receive treatment that they believe works better than drugs originating from the western world.
    Dr. Githae, who is a qualified doctor with a PhD in veterinary sciences, evaluates his patients like conventional doctors would. The only difference is that he prescribes herbal mixtures to remedy the problems from which his patients suffer.
    Githua Mirinda has been consulting Dr. Githae for two decades now. He believes he owes his long life and continued good health to traditional medicine that he was introduced to by Dr Githae. He visits the clinic frequently for a supply of herbal remedies.
    "If they revert to using traditional medicine people will recover completely. We have seen this medicine is the best.
    Because you can go to hospitals for 5 years and not get better and then use herbal medicine for 1 year and be healed. We don't use any other kind." Says Githua.
    Associates of Dr. Githae are keen to show and prove that his way of traditional herbal treatment works.
    "From the records we are talking about fifty percent effectiveness. We have patients that have come to this clinic after they have tried all other clinics and general or national hospitals without any success but upon arrival here when they are at 90% going they actually recover," says Wachira Mathenji the clinic's administrator.
    If fully exploited, the forests that dominate most of central Kenya could contain miracles.
    "We know and we are telling everybody who wants to know that we have drugs that can help and has helped HIV patients.
    We can turn these drugs in big volumes if they are required and we can facilitate to have those drugs accessed by all those who needs them within Kenya within Africa and all over the world," said Dr Githae.
    Children like these in a home for Aids orphans will surely benefit from the introduction of herbal medicines and their availability will surely ensure the decrease the number of graves that belong to the victims of AIDS.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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