• Caution seems to be thrown out of the window in the haste to contain pandemic
Image: FILE
In May last year, I wrote here about Prof Arthur Obel and his controversial Pearl Omega treatment for Aids.
Pearl Omega came out at around the same time as the Kenya Medical Research Institute’s equally contentious Kemron. Kemron was based on a cocktail of nine different forms of the antiviral molecule alpha-interferon.
I am reliably informed by the Internet that interferons are “a protein produced by cells after they have been exposed to a virus. Interferon prevents the virus from reproducing within the infected cells and can also induce resistance to the virus in other cells”.
If I recall correctly, it is over 30 years ago, but the claims made by Dr Davy Koech of Kemri about Kemron were based on a six-month study of 101 patients, almost all who claimed to have no more symptoms of Aids after taking this cocktail of drugs.
Kenyans were over the moon, we had discovered a cure for Aids. The Kenyan government which had been getting grief locally and abroad for bad governance and the murder of Foreign Minister Robert Ouko, was cock-a-hoop at the prospect of some good publicity at last.
However, the high did not last. After tests by the WHO and other international organisations, it was found that Kemron was no better than a placebo. International shame and embarrassment followed, and we all tried to forget that it had ever happened.
I thought about Kemron the other day when the South African Military Command, the highest strategic decision-making body of the South African National Defence Force, issued a press release about the registration and use of the Interferon B drug to manage Covid-19 in the military.
According to the Sandf, Interferon B is a drug that has been manufactured in Cuba and has been safely used worldwide for over 30 years.
The statement said: “It should be mentioned that Interferon is not a vaccine and does not treat Covid-19 pneumonia among hospitalised patients, but it confers heightened protection against Covid-19 as the Sars-2 coronavirus is known to attack natural interferons of the victim.”
The South African Military Health Services duly applied for permission from the South African Health Products Authority (Sahpra) for the use of the drug and got approval.
Meanwhile, weeks after declaring the use of a drug known as Ivermectin that was being lobbied for by a number of doctors in South SAfrica and elsewhere to treat Covid-19, Sahpra has now relented.
They said in a statement: “In an effort to respond to the urgent appeals of healthcare practitioners to provide access to this medicine and to curb the current widespread uncontrolled use of ivermectin, Sahpra has had engagements with the scientific and medical community to explore the options for controlled, monitored access to reliable, quality, ivermectin-containing products for human use with simple but essential reporting requirements.”
All of this back and forth with these drugs and treatments got me wondering whether anybody in Kenya has thought about dusting off the formulas for Kemron and even Pearl Omega, to see if they might be useful in treating Covid-19.
Meanwhile, you may recall that a couple of weeks ago, I told you about the hippo roaming around Johannesburg, and about Kataza the baboon keeping Cape Town residents on their toes.
In the last few days, there has been more wildlife coming into suburbia, this time in the country’s North West Province, which borders Botswana.
The following tale is adapted from a Facebook post by the Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation:
"Angel and Jaco Breytenbach from North West Province in South Africa checked their security cameras before letting their animals out. Good thing they did! There was a crocodile in their swimming pool.
"The crocodile was safely removed and placed in a safe location. He was checked out by the Department of Nature Conservation on Monday, then released back into its natural habitat."
I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled for the next incident.
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