Herbal HIV/AIDS Cure

HIV/AIDS-related diseases remain one of the leading causes of death globally. According to UNAIDS, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide was estimated at 35 million. The current antiretroviral drugs have many disadvantages including resistance, toxicity, limited availability, high cost and lack of any curative effect (Vermani and Garg, 2002). These shortcomings of conventional ART continue to open new vistas in the use of ethnomedicinal plants and other natural products for the management of HIV/AIDS and the need for seach for Herbal HIV cure.

In many countries, the inclusion of anti-HIV ethnomedicines and other natural products in official HIV/AIDS policy is an extremely sensitive and contentious issue. It is sensitive because anti-HIV herbal medicines and other natural products can easily become a scapegoat for denial and inertia to roll-out ART. It is also contentious because in various resource-poor settings, government-sponsored ART programmes discourage the use of traditional medicines, fearing that the efficacy of antiretroviral drugs may be inhibited by such natural products, or that their pharmacological interactions could lead to toxicity. Reliance on anti-HIV plants and other natural products can also lead to poor adherence to ART (Langlois-Klassen et al., 2007). Thus, many governments still have contradictory attitudes towards the use of anti-HIV herbs and other natural products in the management of HIV/AIDS, discouraging them within ART programmes, and supporting them within other initiatives of public health and primary health care.

As early as 1989, the World Health Organization (WHO) had already voiced the need to evaluate ethnomedicines and other natural products for the management of HIV/AIDS: "In this context, there is need to evaluate those elements of traditional medicine, particularly medicinal plants and other natural products that might yield effective and affordable therapeutic agents. This will require a systematic approach", towards Herbal HIV cure and HIV treatment stated a memorandum of the WHO (1989).

The objective of this study was to carry out a database survey of literature for plants and other natural products with anti-HIV active compound present in HOOIMM PLUS. a Bioinformatic database survey is an important prerequisite and starting point in the search for novel HIV/AIDS treatments in natural plants. However, further studies are needed to determine their interactions with current regimes of antiretroviral drugs. More clinical trials of candidate drugs developed from these novel compounds are also encouraged.