Standing in a breezy exterior hallway in Moshi’s Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center near the Child Centered Family Care Clinic where he spends his days, pediatrician Dr. Rahim Damji told me that for weeks this spring, the crowds that typically throng the outpatient HIV clinic at the hospital had thinned out. Many patients stopped taking their anti-retroviral medication after making the trek several hours away to visit a new traditional healer in Loliondo, Ambilikile Mwasapile, known simply as Babu. A retired Lutheran minister, Babu began to gain fame around East Africa last fall because of a herbal concoction—called mugariga—that he claims is a miracle cure for HIV…
“People were coming here less and less. But now they’ve learned that these herbal medications are not working and are coming back to the hospital,” Damji said. “We have had to change some medication because of resistance.”
Ismailimail 