• Tian

By CHARLES SIMENGWA –

YEARS back, it was fashionable to dismiss herbal treatment of AIDS as inferior, but not anymore.
That, now, is an outmoded attitude, and there are good reasons for the shifting viewpoints.
In the past, many countries around the world had what could better be described as ossified medical systems.
They were fixed and unable to accommodate new players in addressing the high disease burden, even in the face of the ravaging effects of HIV/AIDS.
However, recent research shows that there has been a notable thaw in the previously frosty relations between conventional and traditional medical practitioners.
Of particular note are traditional Chinese medicines which are enjoying a growing niche in the market.
Chinese medical researcher, Tian Shengxun says the fight against HIV/AIDS could become more effective if infected people received a combination of conventional anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) and traditional medicines.
Professor Tian, who is based in Nairobi, Kenya, is the inventor of the Tian Immune Booster, widely known as TIB.
TIB, which has been registered by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board under the Ministry of Health in Kenya, is working wonders in people living with HIV/AIDS, including in anti-retroviral therapy (ART) failure cases.
A recent report by the Ministry of Health in Kenya and the United Nations stated that there were “unacceptably” high failure rates of ARVs among refugees and residents of Kakuma, in the northern part of the East African country.
The report indicated drug resistance rates of up to 64 per cent among the refugees and residents of Kakuma.
It was prepared by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.
The report suggests that the high levels of treatment failure among the refugees and the local communities may be due to poor drug adherence.
While some patients were indicated to be on treatment, the amount of viruses in their blood remained crucially high.
“This suggests that drug resistance may be a serious problem within this population,” says the study which was published in the Conflict and Health journal of BioMed Central.
It further indicated that “this may be just the tip of the iceberg in an unfolding crisis that shows high HIV drug failure across the country.”
In April this year, the National Aids and STIs Control Programme, working with the University of Amsterdam, Kemri and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention studied a group of AIDS patients who did not respond to ARVs.
“Nearly one in four patients in Kenya failing second-line treatment has completely exhausted the available ARVs,” the study stated.
The researchers have linked Tenofovir, a popular HIV Aids drug currently in use among Kenyan patients, to kidney damage. It is also a component of Truvada, a recently introduced daily pill for HIV prevention in Kenya.
A team from Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital and Moi University School of Medicine recently presented evidence which suggested that the drug could cause kidney complications in patients.
Tenofovir is mostly preferred for its easier use as a single daily pill. The WHO recommends it for first line management of HIV/AIDS in adults, adolescents, as well as children.
The study overseen by Dr Girbert Kigen of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Moi University School of Medicine was led by Dr Fatuma Some.
The team’s case reports appearing in the Pan African Medical Journal involved two male HIV positive patients aged 53 and 54 on ARVs, which included Tenofovir.
There is an estimated 900,000 AIDS patients on ARVs in Kenya.
Some medical practitioners have argued that the association between kidney disease and Tenofovir is nothing new in the medical fraternity.
A Kenyan registered nurse, who reacted to the latest findings on ARVs in the East African country, says that is the reason why specific tests are done before initiation and continue to be monitored regularly thereafter.
According to the nurse, the onus is on the patient to keep scheduled clinic dates for timely relevant tests to ensure prompt diagnosis and action.
But rather than frown upon either ARVs or traditional medicines, it is now necessary for all interest groups in Africa to forge ties for the benefit of patients.
As Prof Tian indicated in the past, TIB has proved to be useful in tackling opportunistic infections such as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), which is a global threat.
It is inarguable that herbal drugs are, on one hand, benefitting AIDS patients while, on the other, they are giving relief to African governments that are spending huge amounts of money on health budgets due to a high disease burden.
The TIB therapy, according to Prof Tian, has powerful antibiotic functions, and further describes its clinical efficacy as “very promising”.
“Though [there is] nothing 100 per cent in this world, people taking conventional ARVs should be 100 per cent on time taking them, otherwise it will result in health problems, but with TIBs there is no problem at all. People can stop taking TIB any time and resume taking TIB any time,” Prof Tian said in an interview from Nairobi.
Prof Tian, who was first sent to Zambia as part of a Chinese medical expert team in 1990, has been using TIB to treat complicated diseases such as heart, kidney and liver problems, tumour, and anaemia with remarkable outcomes.
The Tian Immunity Booster is a 100 per cent extraction of herbs manufactured in tablet or capsules form.
The drug has been granted international invention patent certificates from China, Africa and the European Union.
It comprises pure herbal products with sugar-coated tablets whose active ingredients are extracted from 100 per cent herbs using modern technology.
Prof Tian said TIB is of multiple targets to control viral load. It blocks the fusion taking place between the HIV and CD4 cells, which implies that it can stop HIV from infecting the CD4 cells being fusion inhibitor.
A six-month dosage is commonly advised as the minimum course. The TIB therapy could be resumed any time whenever is necessary, and it would still work properly, according to Prof Tian.
Clinically, TIB could increase the CD4 and CD8 cell amounts. More than 50 per cent of people who have taken TIB have recorded higher CD8 counts than normal.
Prof Tian said TIB could also protect the bone marrow and stimulate it to produce more blood.
“The laboratory results at Freiburg University in Germany indicated that TIB is capable of stopping the fusion between the CD4 cells and HIV taking place,” he said.
Going by the recognition TIB has gained over the years, it is evident that traditional medicines have occupied a permanent place in the treatment of AIDS in Africa.