Sunday Times, South Africa - July 18, 1999
Janet Heard
People rejected an HIV test because, if it was positive, they regarded it as a death sentence, said Dr Keith Scott, who will visit Cape Town next month to participate in a complementary health congress on the ailing immune system.
"If a doctor recommends a test, patients often respond: 'What is the point, what are you going to do about it?' " said Botswana-based Scott, a doctor specialising in HIV who has also branched into homeopathy and acupuncture.
In the wealthier countries, such as the United Kingdom, 90 percent of patients accepted having an HIV test. "This is because they know that if they are HIV positive, treatment, although costly, is available."
Although there is no cure for AIDS, conventional anti-retro-viral drugs - which include AZT - were an effective treatment to manage the disease. However, they were costly and out of the reach of most African countries, he said.
For the past few years, Scott has dispensed a popular plant-based treatment - known as a sterol and sterolin formula - for HIV patients. Treatment costs R100 a month, a fraction of the cost of the anti-retro-viral drugs.
"About three years ago I got desperate, I had nothing to offer HIV patients. People in the area I work in generally have no medical aid and are from a low socio-economic group," said Scott.
It was then that he heard about an alternative product, originally extracted from the African potato. After researching the product at length, he decided to dispense it at his clinic.
"It works as a micro-nutrient, a vitamin-immuno-modulator, which strengthens the immune system and fights the virus.
"It is so effective that people stop taking it prematurely because they feel so much better. In fact, they need to take it indefinitely."
Scott said the ideal would be to treat an HIV patient with both anti-retro-virals and the sterol-sterolin, which acts as an immune booster.
Dr Peter Smith, convenor of next month's congress, said while there was no cure for AIDS, "complementary medicine can offer a lot of immune support in terms of extending lifestyle and controlling symptoms".
The SA Complementary Medical Association - a sub-group of the Medical Association of SA - will host the congress at the Goudini Spa outside Cape Town next month.
"The congress will look at ways in which complementary and alternative medicine can assist the ailing immune system," said Smith.
"Disorders of the immune system - HIV, the chronic childhood allergies and tuberculosis - are the illnesses of the present day. We have tried to marry Western scientific research into immune disorders with complementary models to see how they can help together, as there is no single answer," said Smith.
Experts from around the world - including India, Australia, Britain, Spain and Switzerland - will address the congress.
Topics include:
--AIDS and the challenge to homeopaths;
--The chronically ill child;
--The roles of Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine in the immune system; and
--The benefits of colon therapy.
The association - which started in 1991 with a handful of members - now has more than 350 members countrywide.
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