HIV/AIDS sufferers might soon be getting relief through natural remedies as research increasingly centers on the benefits of herbs in the search for a cure for the pandemic, a Zimbabwean herbal medicines expert here said on Friday.

Richard Ngwenya who runs a natural-medicine surgery seems to have found natural medicines that reverse the symptoms of HIV/AIDS.

Ngwenya has a herb farm where he grows various plants which he uses to cure chronic diseases which include HIV/AIDS, asthma, diabetes, ulcers, arthritis, meningitis and cancer.

Ngwenya then said HIV/AIDS could be treated but wrong treatment caused the continued suffering of the people.

"These so called untreated chronic illnesses can be cured but bad information, bad treatment, fake hygiene, fake nutrition are some of the causes of continued illnesses," he said.

"When one comes here the first thing we do is to give him a diet sheet so as to advise on good nutrition, the lack of which is one of the causes of illnesses. Medication makes 10 percent of the solution, nutrition 85 percent and education takes the other five percent," he said.

He said medicine had been hiding the source and cure of cancer, leprosy, sexually transmitted diseases and many other diseases.

He accused the medical fraternity of being stuck in tradition.

Anti-retroviral drugs, according to Ngwenya, caused blood coagulation and therefore they did not help much.

The answer, according to Ngwenya, is to de-acidify the body as fungi caused high acidity levels in the body.

"One has to avoid milk, yeast and high acidic foods so that the body can have a pH range of 7.6-7.8," he said.

Ngwenya, a former freedom fighter, learned about herbal medicines in the former Soviet Union, United States of America and Mexico.

HIV/AIDS has caused untold suffering to the world and the lack of a substantive cure has worsened its impact.

According to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare about 2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe and about 3,000 succumb to the pandemic each week.
 
(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2003)