The Cure

About once a month I get a question from someone who has a friend who knows someone who was cured of HIV by a 'dukun' (Indonesian version of witchdoctor).

Takes me back to when my partner was in late stages of AIDS many years back. In those days, being open about one's status was not even thinkable, so no one except me was aware of his situation. But of course his friends knew he was very sick: 'cancer of the blood'.

Almost every Saturday, another friend would appear with either some dreadful concoction to be drunk (usually together with invocations) or with a dukun who would proceed to identify the cause. I vividly remember one occasion when said dukun went down to the garden, dug around a little and came up with a short length of barbed-wire which he said he had found buried. This clearly had been done by an (unidentified) person with a grudge, but now everything would be OK, and my partner would shortly recover. If it wasn't so serious, I'd have had difficulty not laughing out loud!

Anyway, back to the current dukuns. They of course claim that after their treatment, the patient has seroreverted (of course they don't use that term, just say he is now HIV-negative). Oh yeh? They clearly haven't heard of antibodies, and the fact that the HIV test looks for them. Antibodies last for a long time (we usually say for life, but we may be stretching it a bit), and it's most unlikely that the dukun's treatment would not only purge the virus but also remove all traces of the infection, including the antibodies, So, by claiming seroreversion, in my book they are branding themselves liars. They do really need to learn a bit more.

Of course, we always say that if a cure was really found, the whole world would be beating a path to their door. In my more depressed moments, I have nightmares that that might not be the case, and that when a cure is found, it might be hushed up to protect the profits of Big Pharma. Please God this is only a nightmare!

Babé