Egyptian State Television shows a handheld device with an antenna that the Egyptian army claims will detect and cure AIDS and Hepatitis. Photo: AP
Cairo: Egypt’s military has pressed ahead with promotion of a fanciful device it claims can diagnose and cure AIDS and hepatitis, announcing that it would be tested in the next six months on larger numbers of patients in army hospitals.
The military’s supposedly miraculous medical device – a metal gizmo that has been described as resembling a kitchen hand mixer – drew wide ridicule when it was unveiled in February as the invention of an army general. Even a science adviser to the then-interim president, Adly Mansour, said the claim it cures viruses had no scientific basis.
Nonetheless, at a news conference on Saturday, with only selected Egyptian news media outlets allowed to attend, officials again said that it had already successfully treated some patients and that the device would now be used on 160 more for testing purposes over the next six months. Egypt has an extremely high rate of hepatitis C, which is generally considered to be among the most serious of the hepatitis viruses.
As the military was trumpeting its alleged medical breakthrough, a court in the coastal city of Alexandria adjourned until next month the appeal of a human rights campaigner and lawyer who had been sentenced to two years in jail for violating a tough anti-protest law that took effect late last year. From the defendant’s cage, Mahienour al-Massry unleashed defiant chants as she was taken back to jail.