TT Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – The Trinidad and Tobago government says it wants the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Roger Gaspard, to seriously consider prosecuting people who claim to have remedies for various viruses such as the Ebola virus.
Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan told the Sunday Guardian newspaper that claims by self-proclaimed herbalist, Trevor Sayers, that he has found a cure for Ebola was disgusting.
“That is carrying this nonsense to the highest extreme, and people have to understand this man now…if he’s trying to use Ebola to make money. We have to look at what is happening now under the guise of economical self interest.
“I’m condemning that advertisement and all others that indicate that herbal medicine can cure diseases without proper analysis. I also wish that the Consumer Affairs Division and the DPP, which we have written to about that same character’s false advertising about cancer cures, should take serious action,” Dr. Khan told the newspaper.
There is no known cure for the Ebola virus and Sayers told the newspaper that the cure includes lime, honey, bayleaf, zephapeak (sic), Christmas bush, ashes and charcoal.
Dr Khan said he had instructed medical officials at hospitals to remove flyers for the Ebola cure that had been placed all over the hospitals and notice boards.
He said Sayers as well as other herbal practitioners were using innuendoes and supposition to fool the general public. He said there was no scientific basis for a lot of these herbal medicines except hearsay evidence.
Khan said Sayers’ claim was not legal and was false advertising and that the Medical Board couldn’t do anything except condemn Sayers’ action.
Sayers said people needed to build their bodies’ resistance to disease and infections and that while more than 4,000 people had died worldwide from Ebola, in Trinidad and Tobago more people have died from diabetes and hypertension combined than the deadly virus.
Asked by the newspaper how he developed the cure for Ebola, Sayers responded by saying that information on fevers, auto immune diseases that attack, paralyse the body and cause haemorrhaging has been known by ancient African civilisations from time immemorial by such tribes as the Mandingo near the Ebola river in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Sayers said with the ancient knowledge and information from the healers in Africa, he had made many medicines for various ailments and infections, and had even been successful in treating HIV/AIDS patients with his herbal remedies.
