BLANTYRE, Nov 29 (AFP) - Pearson Kamanga stopped taking anti-retroviral drugs four months ago when he started hearing about the wonders of "Chambe", a home brew of herbs from Malawi's tallest mountain sold by a healer who claims it can cure AIDS.
"Look at me now. I look healthy," says Kamanga from his home in Ndirande, the biggest shantytown in the poor southern African nation.
"I drank three bottles of the drug and it really cures," he says.
Kamanga said he didn't think twice about dropping the ARV treatment he had been taking for two years and happily paid 15,000 kwachas (150 dollars) to healer George Kumbuyo for three half-litre bottles of "Chambe".
"Let me assure people that my drug wipes out the AIDS virus in the body. A wasted body can be repaired within a short time," Kumbuyo, 68, told AFP at his clinic in Blantyre, the commercial capital.
"I want to save people's lives. About 20 HIV-positive people who were on the drug have now tested negative," he said, adding that "Chambe" also cures cancer.
Advertisements for AIDS cures are becoming an increasingly common sight in this poor southern African country as many so-called healers are setting up makeshift offices.
Just a stone's throw from the main centre of Blantyre, on a footpath leading to the main market, healer Steven Kalaya has pitched up a tent and displays a sign that reads "Dr. HIV and AIDS" in bold letters.
"The government is cheating when it says there is no cure for AIDS. There is. I have medicine that heals AIDS," says Kalaya.
"All we are asking is for the government to give us a chance to treat Malawians suffering from AIDS. We cannot allow so many people dying each year like that when we have the cure for this disease," says Kalaya, surrounded by his herbs.
Such claims have incensed the government which is hoping to bring in legislation to put charlatans out of business and exert more control over traditional healers.
"As far as we are concerned, there is no cure for AIDS," says health ministry official Richard Pendame.
"People who are taking Chambe and other drugs are doing so at their own risk," he says.
About 14 percent of adults in Malawi, or 770,000 people are living with HIV and AIDS, according to UN figures. Some 84,000 people died of AIDS in Malawi last year.
Rex Mpazanje, head of clinical services in the ministry of health, says the rise in healers claiming to offer a cure for AIDS was a sign of growing "desperation" among AIDS sufferers in Malawi.
"They would go for anything as a cure," says Mpazanje.
Only 9,000 people are enrolled in Malawi's free ARV program launched in May while 100,000 people are seeking treatment.
Mpazanje says some healers are taking advantage of the absence of regulations and admits the vacuum has led to a "rise of charlatans that claim to cure HIV/AIDS."
But the days of charlatans could well be numbered because a proposed draft bill, which is expected to pass into law next year, would require that all traditional healers register with a board.
"No traditional healer will be allowed to practise in Malawi without registering with the board," says Mpazanje. The bill is being drafted by the ministry of health, the association of traditional healers of Malawi and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The president of the Herbalists' Association of Malawi (HAM), Grant Chipangula, bashes practitioners who claim they can cure AIDS.
"AIDS has no cure and nobody should be cheated by Chambe. It's a fake," he says.
Malawi has 30,000 traditional healers, operating in villages and towns. Many Malawians in rural areas resort to traditional medicine for ailments.
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