InterPress News Service (IPS); 20 November 1997
Judith Achieng'

The treatment, known as the 'Ozone therapy', has been described by Kenyan medical authorities, as ineffective. "It has no medical value," says Dr Richard Barasa, in charge of Kenya's Medical Practitioners and Dentist Board.

Barasa says the board had objected to Ozone therapy, a technique whereby a derivative of oxygen is injected into the body, for its failure to treat any disease. The treatment has been tried in a number of Nairobi clinics over the past one year.

The treatment was introduced in Kenya by Basil Wainwright, a U.S. national. He is now at the centre of a controversy in the East African nation, not only for promising to cure people of AIDS, but according to the Kenya Medical Board, Wainwright has been practicing medicine illegally.

The board says it discovered that Wainwright is a physicist who was masquerading as a medical doctor. It has barred him from practicing and has closed down all the clinics offering the treatment.

Doctors and medical institutions also have been warned against using the Ozone therapy treatment on patients. "We have informed the police about the illegal use of the Ozone as a treatment for any disease. The law has been broken and they should know how to deal with it," says Barasa.

This is not the first time that the Kenyan authorities have had to take tough action with doctors who claim that they have discovered a cure for AIDS.

Last year, for example, Dr Arthur Obel, a Kenyan national, claimed that a drug he had developed, Pearl Omega, would cure people of the disease. Kenya's Pharmacy and Poisons Board has since banned the manufacture, distribution and sale of the drug.

Obel, a chief scientist in President Daniel arap Moi's office, was linked to the development of Kemron, which in 1989, was touted as an AIDS cure, but it failed to prove its worth under medical scrutiny.

Wainwright claims that the uproar in the Kenyan medical community about his treatment is part of a larger conspiracy plotted by American pharmaceutical companies which want to suppress other forms of AIDS treatment in order to market their drugs.

"The US is alarmed about the breakthrough, because no one can patent oxygen. It cannot be stored and the equipment needed to produce it is cheap," he says.

Wainwright says he had been charging between Ksh 2,000 and Khs 15,000 (60 Kenya shillings equal one U.S. dollar) for the treatment, depending on the nature of the disease. He claims that the ozone therapy technique is currently used by more than 23,000 licenced medics in Europe.

Wainwright says the ozone oxygen, created in the laboratory from oxygen, dissolves at least 15 times faster in the blood than normal oxgen and improves blood circulation in the body. Once in the blood it disinfects the system knocking off viruses, fungi and bacteria, he explains.

He says the theory of using oxygen in treating diseases is an old technique which was widely used in dental practice and later used by Germans to treat wounds during World War I. "Weakened by the ozone, the germs become susceptible to the body's natural defences," Wainwright adds.

The physicist claims that the therapy not only prolongs the life of a patient, but could also reverse the symptoms of AIDS caused by the HIV virus.

"It has proven effective in laboratory and clinical studies and the results have been published in hundreds of peer review scientific journals throughout the world," he says.

Despite the snub by the authorities, Wainwright still enjoys support from his former patients, like James Makokha who lost his wife and child to AIDS. "I had given up hope about living until a friend told me about a new treatment for AIDS," he says.

Makokha and 37 other patients claim they have been successfully cured of AIDS. "If it were not for Ozone, I would be in the grave today," says another HIV patient who claims he reverted to HIV-negative after the treatment.

However, not everyone here attests to Ozone as a cure for AIDS. "My friend died even after undergoing the treatment," says Lilian Njoroge, a beauty specialist here.

The AIDS epidemic has claimed the lives of around 230,000 Kenyans aged between 15 and 39 years since 1994 and according to estimates, about a million Kenyans will have died of the disease by the year 2000.

HIV, which causes AIDS, has infected up to 1.3 milllion Kenyans, Assistant Health Minister Basil Criticos said recently in parliament, when he tabled a bill aimed at tackling AIDS -- the government's first official acknowledgement of the magnititude of the disease."Some people do not even know that they carry the virus," he said.

So far, no cure or vaccine has been found for the virus which has infected at least 23 million people globally. But certain restroviral cocktails of drugs developed recently have delayed the onset of AIDS. "But the drugs are expensive and only rich people can afford them," says Makokha.

A medical doctor here says the anti-Aids cocktail treatment annually would cost upwards of 20,000 U.S. dollars, far beyond the reach of the majority of Kenyans whose per capita income on health spending is less than 10 U.S. dollars per annum.(END/IPS/JA/MN/PM97)

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