Kumasi, Oct 5, GNA - A public health nurse at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has identified the activities of quack doctors as one of the major setbacks to the control of HIV/AIDS. Madam Gladys Asamoah, who made this assertion, said quack doctors continue to infect people with the disease through injections with unsterilised syringes and other equipment.

She therefore, called on the government to help flush out the quack doctors so as to help control the spread of the disease. Madam Asamoah was speaking at an HIV/AIDS talk for over 2,000 members from 60 branches of the Saint Theresa Society drawn from the Catholic Archdiocese of Kumasi on Saturday.

She asked the churches to intensify their efforts at counselling prospective marriage couples to go for the voluntary test for them to know their health status so as to avoid regret and disappointment when they detect that one of them was HIV positive.

Dr Paul Collini, a Physician Specialist at KATH, dismissed the claim by some herbalists and pastors that they had the cure for AIDS. He made it categorically clear that as at now, there was no outright cure for the disease and that what even the anti-retroviral drug currently being administered on AIDS patients does is to sustain and prolong the lives of the patients.

Dr Collini cautioned People Living With AIDS (PLWAs) against using orthodox and herbal medicines in the treatment of the disease simultaneously since that could bring about chemical reaction, which could lead to other effects or reduce the potency of both medicines.

He said currently, KATH was taking care of 1,200 PLWAs, out of which 400 were under medication and go for the anti-retroviral drug, while the remaining 800 whose cases were normal were receiving counselling and occasionally go for check-ups to ascertain their state of health.

Miss Georgina Afriyie, National President of the Saint Theresa Society, called on parents to make the proper upbringing of their children their priority.