University of Benin on Wednesday distanced itself
from Prof. Isaiah Ibeh’s claim that he had found a possible cure
for AIDS.
Reports on Wednesday quoted Ibeh, who is
UNIBEN’s Dean of Basic Medical Sciences, as saying he had developed
a herbal drug capable of curing AIDS.
He told the News Agency of Nigeria in
Benin on Tuesday that the new drug had undergone “a series of successful
tests”.
But speaking with our correspondent in his office
on Tuesday, Provost, College of Medical Sciences, UNIBEN, Prof. Vincent Iyawe,
said the university was unaware of the breakthrough, and would therefore not
substantiate it until procedures for verifying such were concluded.
Iyawe said, “The school will like to take
credit for a breakthrough, but the school cannot align with the breakthrough
because the university college was not consulted and the university was not
consulted. He didn’t carry anybody along, so, this is the issue. There are
protocols and procedures, stage by stage procedures
“We are going to take it (drug) to the clinical
laboratory, we are going to take it to the Federal Ministry of Health because
they have a procedure there.
“We’ll probably take it to NAFDAC because
it is a unit or department of the ministry. We’ll take it for clinical trial,
and many things we’ll have to do before we can announce that we discovered
something.
“In fact, we have to take it to the
World Health Organisation. So these are the things we are discussing.”
Asked whether Ibeh was unaware of such procedures
before going public, Iyawe said, “I don’t know. He can answer that question,
but we are not granting a press interview. I said after we have finished,
we can still call you people (media). All we are doing is to protect him.”
However, the provost was not sure of
how long it could take the university to verify Ibeh’s claim.
Iyawe said, “It depends on what we are dealing
with; it depends on the virus or bacteria you are dealing with. It could take
years, it’s not something you expect an answer to in two weeks or one month’s
time. Don’t drag me into this.”
Ibeh, who was present, said, “I will naturally
maintain studied silence.
“I align myself with the voice of the Provost.
Please don’t drag him at all in troubled waters. I am sure he has my best
interest because we are not just friends, he is my boss and he will
certainly look out for my interest.”
Meanwhile, Ibeh said the unwillingness of big
hospitals to provide a larger sampling population for the new research
may hinder further research works and progress.
In a telephone interview with one of our
correspondents, he said there were still questions to be answered about the
product and other procedures to be followed to ensure the authentication of his
claim.
Ibeh said, “There are no hospitals willing to
cooperate with us, this is a challenge. We need a larger population size for
this study. In every research, there are three types of individual. They are
all important for us to make authentic scientific conclusions. We have the
hyper, normal and hypo individuals, a bigger sampling size will enable us to
examine the impact of the drug on all these groups.”
PUNCH.
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