Mick Hartley

What with Thabo Mbeki’s regrettable history – nevermind his health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang – plus Gaddafi and the Benghazi trial, African leaders don’t have a great record when it comes to Aids. Now here’s Gambia’s president, Yahya Jammeh:

From the pockets of his billowing white robe, Gambia’s president pulls out a plastic container, closes his eyes in prayer and rubs a green herbal paste on to the ribcage of his patient. He then orders the thin man to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.

“Whatever you do there are bound to be sceptics, but I can tell you my method is foolproof,” Yahya Jammeh says, surrounded by his bodyguards inside his presidential compound as he prepares to treat more patients.

“Mine is not an argument, mine is a proof. It’s a declaration. I can cure AIDS, and I will.”

In a continent suffering from the world’s worst AIDS epidemic, claims of miracle cures like those of Mr Jammeh are alarming public health workers already struggling against the corrosive effect of faith-healers dispensing herbal remedies.

The biggest concern to experts is that Mr Jammeh requires his patients to stop taking their anti-retroviral drugs, a dangerous move, since doing so can weaken the body’s immune system, making the patient prone to infection, said Dr Antonio Filipe, the local head of the World Health Organisation in neighbouring Senegal.