Institutional belief · Medicine and public health
Presidential herbal treatment as an HIV/AIDS cure
A presidential herbal preparation was treated as capable of curing HIV/AIDS rapidly enough to replace antiretroviral therapy for people enrolled in a state treatment programme.
1 episode
Current understanding
Current understanding
There is no evidence that the herbal preparation used by the Gambian President’s Alternative Treatment Programme cured HIV. Effective antiretroviral therapy suppresses HIV replication and must not be discontinued in favour of unvalidated herbal remedies; interruption can allow viral rebound and disease progression.
Consequences and human impact
Consequences and human impact
The Gambia converted a personal cure claim into a coercive state treatment programme. The presidency organized the programme, health personnel and laboratories supported it, state broadcasting publicized it, and participants were required to stop standard antiretroviral treatment. A later Gambian truth commission reconstructed the programme and found serious human-rights and health harms.
How the consequences followed
The disputed claim was that this specific presidential preparation, administered through the state programme, cured HIV/AIDS. That history does not imply that traditional or herbal medicines are ineffective for every condition.
President Yahya Jammeh publicly proclaimed an HIV/AIDS cure and created the state treatment programme
Programme participants were taken off standard antiretroviral therapy while receiving the presidential treatment
The Gambian truth commission reconstructed the programme and its harms from state and participant evidence
Quantitative figures are highlighted only when the cited evidence supports them. The scale of a related catastrophe is not automatically treated as a death toll caused solely by this belief.
Institutional episode
The Gambia
Beginning in 2007, President Yahya Jammeh claimed that his herbal treatment could cure HIV/AIDS and established the President’s Alternative Treatment Programme to administer it. The later Gambian truth commission found that the programme used state structures, required participants to stop antiretroviral therapy, and exposed them to serious health and rights violations. WHO had warned contemporaneously that no HIV cure existed and that herbal remedies must not replace antiretroviral treatment.
Institutions
- Office of the President of The Gambia
- President’s Alternative Treatment Programme (PATP)
- Ministry of Health and Social Welfare
Documented consequences
- People living with HIV were enrolled in an unvalidated state treatment programme
- Participants were required to discontinue standard antiretroviral treatment
- State medical and laboratory resources were used to support the programme
- Public broadcasting gave institutional legitimacy to the claimed cure
- Participants experienced medical deterioration and deaths documented by the later truth commission
Institutional machinery
The cure claim was operationalized through a programme centered in the presidency rather than left as a private statement. Patients living with HIV were enrolled in PATP, state health personnel and laboratory services participated, and the programme was publicly legitimized through government media. The programme's political operating environment ended with the Jammeh administration in 2016; that date reflects regime change, not a scientific discovery.
Sources and what they establish
- Report Volume 9 — President’s Alternative Treatment ProgrammeTruth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission / Ministry of Justice, The Gambia
Official Gambian truth-commission report reconstructing Jammeh’s HIV/AIDS cure proclamation, creation and operation of PATP, participation of state personnel, withdrawal of standard treatment, participant testimony, and resulting harms.
- WHO Statement on Treatment of HIV/AIDSWorld Health Organization Regional Office for Africa
Contemporaneous February 2007 WHO statement says there was no cure for HIV/AIDS, identifies continuous antiretroviral therapy as effective treatment, and warns that herbal remedies must not replace comprehensive HIV care or cause antiretroviral therapy to be discontinued.
Last reviewed: 24/08/2026