Ghana Aids Commission and the murky case of HIV drug COA FS
The Director-General of the Ghana Aids Commission (GAC), Dr. Mokowa Blay-Adu-Gyamfi has said that the locally manufactured COA FS drug is not an immune booster, but this claim that has been debunked by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA).
Speaking at a recent press conference organized by the GAC, in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the National Aids Control Program (NACP), the D-G of the GAC stated categorically that in a letter to the GAC, FDA stated that COA FS is only a food supplement but not an immune booster.
But the Head of Herbal and Traditional Medicines at the FDA, Yaw Kwarteng said that what the GAC D-G said was not true because COA FS is indeed a tried and tested immune booster, and he personally believes the drug has promise as far as the fight against HIV is concerned.
The bare facts
COA FS is a herbal medicine manufactured by a Ghanaian company, called Centre for Awareness (COA) as an efficient immune booster to help one’s immune system fight diseases and disease-causing viruses, bacteria and others.
The drug has been duly tested and certified by the FDA as a food supplement that boosts the immune system.
The position of the manufacturer of the drug, Dr. Samuel Ato Duncan has always been that to the extent that HIV is nothing more than a human immuno-deficiency virus, once COA FS boosts one’s immune system, the system fights the virus on its own and eventually destroys it.
COA and GAC
Way back in 2007, COA wrote to the GAC and informed them about their findings regarding the efficacy of COA FS, and the GAC, in a letter dated January 23, 2007, referred them to the Ministry of Health to prepare the drug for further testing at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research. COA obliged and eventually the drug got to Noguchi for testing.
On October 5, 2012, Noguchi released the report on their findings and stated categorically that in their in vitro test (lab/test tube) the drug reduced the viral load in a subject by 70 – 80 per cent. One of the Noguchi researchers, Dr. Jacob Barnor then went on GTV and stated categorically that indeed, the COA FS reduced the viral load in subjects significantly and that was a positive sign that COA FS could be a potential cure.
Dr. Barnor also stated that the drug showed a potential of completely destroying the virus in a subject if applied consistently. What was left after that was for the drug to go for a clinical test, which is when humans with HIV will be used for the experiment.
Clinical test in SA
The clinical test should have been ordered by the key stakeholders in the HIV control in Ghana, ie. GAC, GHS and the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP), because they have the mandate, per their mission statement to seek an eventual cure for the disease. But all of these institutions continued to remain aloof and indifferent, so South Africa became an option.
The University of Kwazulu Natal graciously agreed to host the clinical test. Eighteen HIV patients in South Africa agreed to be part of the test. The result of months of tests was put out in South Africa, and it showed that the patients became totally free of the virus. Two of them, Bandile Mdlalose and China Ngubane were in Ghana to tell their own stories. Interestingly, the two were researchers themselves so they understood what they were doing. Indeed, the South African researcher who did the test, Manimbulu Nlooto used the report for his doctorate thesis and was awarded the doctorate degree.
In the South African clinical, COA FS (which is intravenous) was used in building the immune system of the patients and that destroyed some of the virus in the blood stream, but some hid in the body tissues. But then they applied another COA product called COA 72, which is an intramuscular injectable and that flushed out the virus from the tissues into the blood stream for the COA FS to finally deal with them.
Ebola in Sierra-Leone
COA FS has always been promoted as an immune booster and not specifically a cure for HIV. So in Sierra Leone, the Ministry of Health agreed to use it to fight Ebola, and per the Deputy Minister, Fordi Sawi’s own testimony, it worked effectively and several patients put on it recovered.
Back home in Ghana, several people have testified openly of being cured of terminal conditions like breast, kidney failure and others. Popular Ghanaian Musician, OJ Black had stage four kidney failure and was set for dialysis when he was introduced to COA FS and today he is free from the disease and is walking healthy.
In spite of all these significant result, Dr. Samuel Ato Duncan has never said anywhere that the drug is a cure for HIV and AIDS. Indeed, as a professional scientist himself, who has worked at GAC before, he knows the several standardization protocols a drug needs to go through before being certified as a cure for a particular disease.
Dr. Duncan’s claim has always been that COA FS is a potential cure for HIV. Some media reports may have captured his statement in ways to create the impression that he said it is a cure, but he always qualified it as a potential cure. But as of now, the drug is a certified immune booster that has proven to be effective in the fight against several disease-causing micro organisms, including HIV. That is not a false statement as the South African test and several other users across Ghana and the rest of the world would show.
Indeed, Dr. Duncan has always said the persons on the antiretroviral drugs should not give it up for COA FS, but if they so wished, they could use COA FS as a supplement because whereas antiretroviral drugs suppress the virus, COA FS actually destroys them, as the result from Noguchi, and Kwazulu Natal University showed.
GAC propaganda
Those are the claims that GAC, their collaborators are uncomfortable with. In spite of all the evidence, GAC and their collaborators, including even the persons living with HIV have decided never to pay attention to COA FS or commit any resources to look further into it and see if there is the slightest possibility of Ghana being the first to discover an effective cure for HIV.
Meanwhile, the mission statement of the GAC clearly states that “The Ghana AIDS Commission, as the highest policy making body on HIV and AIDS, provides effective and efficient leadership in coordination of all programmes and activities of all stakeholders (MDAs, Private Sector, Development Partners and Civil Society) in the Fight against HIV and AIDS through advocacy, joint planning, monitoring and evaluation FOR THE EVENTUAL ELIMINATION OF THE DISEASE.
In effect, the sum total of all the GAC does should culminate in the eventual elimination of the HIV and AIDS disease. Part of their mandate is to coordinate the activities of PRIVATE SECTOR organizations in Ghana, in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
There is no evidence of anything the GAC itself is doing to find a cure, except to receive antiretroviral drugs recommended by others, and then receive funds to go round distributing those drugs and doing monitoring and evaluation and awareness.
If GAC is serious about fulfilling its mission and putting Ghana on the global map as the place where a cure for HIV was found, they would have been investing a fraction of the millions they use for monitoring and evaluation to fund further research into the local drugs that have showed promise in fighting HIV. Rather, they and their collaborators continue to make statements that betray their intention to suppress and destroy any and every attempt at getting a local solution to HIV.
Some of the statements they make are that those who claim the drugs found in Ghana can deal with the HIV should inject themselves with the virus and use those drugs to cure themselves, then they could be believed.
They also claim, as stated earlier, that COA FS is not an immune booster, but that has been proven otherwise because the FDA, to whom GAC attributed that statement, has not only denied it, but also stated that COA FS is actually a certified immune booster. They have gone on further to state that COA FS shows promise as a potential cure for HIV.
GAC also claims antiretroviral drugs are free but COA FS costs money.
Déjavu
For instance, when Prof. Ayisi of Noguchi discovered the goat serum in 2005, the predecessor of the current GAC staff, like Pof. Fred Sai and Prof. Sakyi Amoa, then Director-General of GAC kicked against it with two main excuses:
1. That the goat serum was only tested on goats and not on humans, even though they agreed that it was efficacious against HIV 2.
2. That the drug never went though a toxicology test so it could not be certified as safe for human consumption.
By Samuel Dowuona