Egyptians woke up last Sunday to stunning news of the discovery of a cure to the disease that brings down some 9.8 per cent of them, hepatitis C. The announcement was made by the Egyptian Armed Forces,
in the context of a listing of the various projects the military were carrying out to benefit the community. This came during the opening ceremony of construction projects, which was attended by President Adly Mansour and Defence Minister Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. The news of the ‘miracle cure’ spread like wildfire, became the focus of attention of the entire Egyptian society, and made the headlines of newspapers and talk shows.
The wondrous cure announced not only promised a near-perfect cure for hepatic viruses, but also for HIV/AIDS, and had been discovered, tested, and perfected by army medical officials.
Screening device
Ahmed Ali Mu’nis, Professor of Hepatology at Ain Shams University, is one of the first scientists who talked in detail about the new discovery. As a member of the research team for the diagnosis and treatment of viruses, Dr Mu’nis explained that the media was in a mix-up about the new devices. In fact, there are three devices that detect the presence of viruses in the human body with great accuracy even for patients who are completely unaware that they are carrying them. It is no secret that the viruses for hepatitis C and AIDS can remain dormant in the body for years on end, during which the infected person shows no indication whatsoever of the disease.
The detection devices are known as C-Fast, B-Fast, and I-Fast, Dr Mu’nis says, and they detect viruses using a very simple method. Each device, which carries a radio-like antenna, is pointed towards the patient; the antenna oscillates in case a virus is detected and stands still otherwise. General Dr Ahmed Amien who decoded what is known as the virus fingerprint and encrypted it into the device’s software system, found that in case there was a large concentration of the virus the antenna oscillated repeatedly so that it was not easy to determine the virus concentration. He thus developed the device to work as a digital system and have the results displayed on a screen instead of the antenna.
When screening a possible patient for hepatitis C virus, the device emits electromagnetic signals towards the patient; if the emitted signals detect the presence of the hepatitis C signature, a match is found and the patient is diagnosed with hepatitis C. Devices for the detection of other viruses such as B-Fast and I-Fast emit different signals that screen the patient for the virus signatures of hepatitis B and HIV/AIDS. The device can only detect the amount of viruses that exist in the body—not the stage of the disease itself. All the same, the amount of viruses is usually considered an indicator of the severity and stage of the disease. So far, the devices have performed with a zero error coefficient, meaning that their success rate at detecting the viruses reached 100 per cent after they were tested in Germany, the UK and the US.
Treatment device
“Another device was developed by General Dr Ibrahim Abdel-Aaty for the treatment of both hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS viruses,” adds Dr Mu’nis, “and I am honoured to have been part of his research team.”
The device is connected to a hose that emits specific radiation directed to the patient’s body. The waves dismantle the virus inside the body leading to the eventual virus disintegration; just as a strand or braid that gets undone and then vanishes. This is a very complex process and involves calculations related to the fields of medicine and physics. The device has been secretly tested for 22 years and clinical trials were performed on chimpanzees in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Clinical trials
Dr Wael Ahmed Mohamed, Intensive Care Specialist and Cardiology Consultant at Imbaba Fever Hospital, also says he has been very honoured to be a member of the treatment device’s research team. The team which includes 72 doctors, technicians and nurses performed clinical trials on 30 HIV/AIDS patients and 50 hepatitis C patients last year after it had been tested in Russian labs. The time required to cure AIDS by the device is less than that required to cure hepatitis C. Hepatitis C patients require some one-and-a-half months for treatment and another six months of follow-up. A complete medical examination must be performed before the start of the treatment which has been proved to completely destroy the virus without any negative effect on the patient’s general health.
The inventor speaks
The inventor of the new treatment device, General Dr Ibrahim Abdel-Aaty, Head of the Ministry of Defence’s Scientific Research Authority, spoke with great pride of his invention. “It is 22 years now that we have secretly been conducting experiments with the new device,” he says. “The policy of treating patients in Egypt has not yet been announced, but I can confirm that treatment will be available for all Egyptian patients, rich and poor, by next June or July at most. The Armed Forces is now in the process of setting up treatment centres in military hospitals for the purpose. These will be specialised institutes, just like the cancer or liver national institutes.”
Dr Abdel-Aaty believes the treatment for viruses will be available at a near-100 per cent cure rate. But when asked about the reaction of pharmaceutical companies towards his invention, he replied that until now they showed no opposition whatsoever to his device. He sees his device as a big benefit for Egypt and a source of national income because people will come from all over Africa where there is a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS to seek treatment in Egypt. “Now that a cure for AIDS exists in Egypt, our country will become a mecca for patients in search of a cure. We will not allow this device to be used anywhere in the world other than in our country,” he says.
In addition, Dr Abdel-Aaty believes the new treatment device to be cost-effective because it replaces all other expensive medications that have appeared recently and which Egypt was trying to get at reduced prices. [A full story on the dilemma of securing treatment for hepatitis C patients in Egypt was covered in Watani International’s last issue, Sunday 23 February 2014, page 2] “After all, they are chemical treatments that will eventually cause many side effects,” he says.
Skepticism
Abdel-Hamid Abaza, assistant to the Health Ministry, told Watani that whereas the diagnostic device is patented and has been recognised locally and internationally, the same does not apply to the treatment device. Dr Abaza said the device was based on a sound scientific concept, but had been announced prematurely. The Armed Forces, he said, had more than a year ago approached the Health Ministry for permission to conduct clinical tests on the new device and was granted permission to do so at the Fevers Hospital in Abassiya, Cairo. Recently, he said, the sector in charge at the Armed Forces filed a request with the Health Ministry for the official approval of the treatment device, but the Ministry required further research and tests.
Despite the hopes raised by the announcement, the new cure came in for its fair share of skepticism among both the public and the medical community. While a number of Egypt’s most respected liver specialists gave the device rave reviews, many others—not least among them was Essam Haggi who is scientific consultant to the President—claimed it was a hoax not backed by substantial scientific evidence.
The controversy inevitably calls to mind the story of the American inventor Royal Raymond Rife (1888 – 1971) who reported that a ‘beam ray’ device of his invention could weaken or destroy pathogens by energetically exciting destructive resonances in their constituent chemicals, but his claims were discredited by the medical profession in the 1950s.
The idiom goes: the proof of the pudding is in the eating; July 2014 is a mere four months away.
WATANI International
26 February 2014