Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
activities. At the same time, ministers from other parts of the government enthusiastically
madethetriptoSamunge.Dr.SalashToure,theArusharegionalhealthofficer,declaredpub-
liclythathishospitalhadtesteddozensofpeoplewhoclaimedtobecuredofHIV,andallhad
tested positive. However, the influential Lutheran bishop Thomas Laizer lobbied on Mwas-
apila's behalf, calling the liquid “a gift from God.” The lines at Samunge grew.
On March 25, the government reversed course, announcing that the herbal concoction was
safe to drink and that they would take no action to stop people from visiting Samunge to take
the cure, but would start registering vehicles and providing basic services like first aid and
toilets to the overtaxed village. The Ministry of Health appointed a team of doctors to study
the effects of the liquid. In April, the government acknowledged 87 people had died while in
transit to Samunge.
Kati Regan, the American managing director of Support for International Change (SIC),
felt compelled to go directly to the Ministry of Health to clarify government policy toward
Mwasapila. The NGO provides treatment and counseling to people with HIV, and she es-
timates 20 percent of their clients abandoned ARV therapy in March or April. Some of her
Tanzanian colleagues told her Mwasapila's cure worked, and she had to fend off HIV pa-
tients who wanted to borrow the organization's truck to make the trip. For Regan, this was a
huge setback. “You never want to see someone going off treatment, especially when you've
worked for years to have it be part of their routine,” she said. But Regan still refrained from
offeringanopinionofMwasapila'sliquidoutofrespectforherclients'beliefs.“Ididn'twant
to offend someone who decided to go, and I sympathize with someone who wants a cure.”
Not all health workers were as circumspect. Pat Patten was especially blunt: “I don't be-
lieve in faith healing; I think this is a deception. And I'm a Catholic priest.” Patten is also
a pilot and the director of Flying Medical Service. He has lived and worked in Tanzania for
over 30 years. A Spiritan priest, he wears secular jeans and T-shirts while flying bush planes
to remote settlements, providing regular rotating clinics, and flying emergency evacuations.
“I'm open to a powerful placebo effect, but placebo effects only relieve the symptoms, never
the root of the problem.”
He remembers the shock of flying over Mwasapila's village in February, looking out the
window of his Cessna 206 to see a traffic jam. Now, after talking to doctors throughout the
region,heisconvincedMwasapila'streatment hasledtodisaster.“Whatwe'reseeingisalot
of AIDS patients dying in hospitals because they've stopped taking medicine. Diabetics are
now going blind, suffering kidney failure, experiencing swelling in their hands and feet, and
getting diabetic sores on their extremities.” He worries about an outbreak of drug-resistant
tuberculosis and adds, “These are all unnecessary deaths, all of them.”
And the famous story of Mwasapila's first patient, Patten claims, was a lie. He spoke to
doctors familiar with the case who said the woman had never tested positive before taking
