The Big Interview: Gambia’s Health Director Dr. Mbowe Speaks!!!!

….Mbowe Says “ MRC Gambia Had closed Its Malaria Research Stations, Thanks To The Country’s Success Story On Malaria Fight.”

….MRC Workers Terminated

Gambian Gynecologist Accuses EX CNN Correspondent Jeff Koinange And A Dakar Based Medical Scientist As “ Liars.”

In a rare interview, with the US based Freedom Newspaper Sunday, Tamsir Mbowe,  Director of Gambia’s Health Services,  has revealed that due to the country’s success story in the fight against the killer disease malaria, the UK based Medical Research Council ( MRC) is downsizing its operations in the West African country.  The Russian trained Gynecologist said the MRC had closed down some of its malaria research stations in The Gambia, thanks to the nation’s recent historic achievement in combating the global malaria pandemic. Mbowe said as a result of this, some of the MRC local and foreign expertrates were laid off. “To be quiet honest, malaria has gone down more than 45 percent.  It has gone down more than 45 percent. In fact, because of that the Medical Research Council ( MRC) is closing some of its research stations. It’s one of the main reasons. They have laid off many of their workers.  All is because mainly,the fact that malaria has gone down.  Because malaria is being attacked in this country in different forms.  We have the preventive part and the curative part.  So we fighting the malarial situation in both sides. As a result of that, this have already been registered.  It’s a very good news.  It has gone down 45 percent,.”said the Former Health Minister.  In this exclusive interview, Dr. Mbowe commented on recent media reports about acute drug shortages, mass exodus of Gambian nurses overseas, the “ CNN biased” reportage of the President’s aids cure, his beef with a Senegalese medical Scientist Dr. Mboob, among other topical issues. Please read on….

By Pa Nderry M’Bai, Raleigh NC

Freedom Newspaper: What can you tell us about the current acute drug shortages hitting The Gambia?

Dr. Mbowe: There is no hospital on this earth that can provide medicines for its entire  patients. All the basic drugs are available here. Although, there are certain drugs that are not available, but that does not necessarily mean that there is an acute drug shortage. Government can’t get all the drugs.

Freedom Newspaper: It has been reported that some health workers are in the habit of stealing drugs. How true are such reports?

Dr.Mbowe: That’s not true.  All the drugs Government imports come from England and Egypt. These drug are labeled as “ for Gambia Government.” And there is no way that they can sell these drugs to the public. The Department of pharmacy, under the Directorship of Martin Janneh, inspects other local pharmacies in a bid to ensure compliance. Mr. Janneh and his team have been going round to look out for violators.

People should be catering for their drug needs. I do not see the rational for them to spend thousands of dalasi on sim cards, when they are in need of other health priorities.

Freedom Newspaper: You made an interesting remark about the sim cards. What are you trying to imply here?

Dr.Mbowe:  What I was telling you…you see the average Gambian would prefer to buy….to spend his money in this sim card, telephone card or in unnecessary expenditure. That’s what I am trying to emphasis to you.

Freedom Newspaper: So in other words you are saying that they are not prioritizing their health needs.

Dr.Mbowe: Exactly. And there is no Government in this world that can provide all these medicines. I am a medical doctor. I know that there are more than hundred thousand different drugs.  So there is no health facility in this world that can provide all the drugs needed for its patients.  That’s why you have pharmaceutical stores everywhere.

Freedom Newspaper: Now what is the way forward for this problem to be resolved? 

Dr. Mbowe: I think the way forward is… number one for parastatals, NGOS and individuals to come in and support the health sector.

Freedom Newspaper: Are you saying that the health sector is in desperate need of help right now?

Dr. Mbowe: That’s all the sectors. Not necessary right now, but to continue to support it.

Freedom Newspaper: And what areas do you want them to intervene?

Dr.Mbowe:  Well, there are presently many challenges that are there. For example, the attrition rate.  You know  most of our technical guys are leaving for greener pasture. In order to discourage the attrition rate, I think Gambians must be committed.  There must be the patriotism-that this is the homeland. That I have to stay and work for my own people and not to go in for money or to leave the country for another greener pasture. 

Freedom Newspaper: But the majority of the health workers complained about lack of job security. That the Government hires and fires them without reason.

Dr. Mbowe:  There is job security. For example, take a typical guy like me.  I had to come home sacrifice everything and work for my people. At the end of the day, I am serving my people.

Freedom Newspaper: So you are challenging them to comeback home and help the health sector?

Dr.Mbowe: Of course, of course, yes Sir. Yes.             

Freedom Newspaper: Is the Government considering increasing their salaries if they returned home?

Dr. Mbowe: Of course yes. Anyone who applies is automatically being taken.  I am presently responsible…in charge of that.  Anyone who comes back home to work is automatically being offered a job in the health sector.  And also, we have this national attrition problem. People leaving the health sector and going to private clinics and private pharmacies because they paid more.

Freedom Newspaper:  What’s the problem? Is it because of poor salary or what? That the Government is not paying them more money.

Dr. Mbowe:  We are all sacrificing. The Government is providing all it can.  At the end of the day, we must understand one thing… This is a developing country.  That’s trying everything possible to raise the standards of the wellbeing of Gambians. So if anyone should sit there, outside or abroad and think that the Government will do everything, that is impossible. It makes no sense. People like us are back at home sacrificing, working for 24 hours, but with the little we having, we trying to survive with it, because we know at the end of the day is the motherland. 

Freedom Newspaper: So you are saying that private practice got more money than working for the Government?

Dr.Mbowe: Of course yes. But at the end of the day is not the money.  I think a medical practitioner should be after the number of lives you saved during your medical career. That’s the most important thing and not the amount of wealth you accumulated. 

Freedom Newspaper: Mr. Mbowe, as a seasoned medical practitioner, what can you tell us about the situation of malaria and HIV/AIDS in the country?

Dr.Mbowe:  To be quiet honest, malaria has gone down more than 45 percent.  It has gone down more than 45 percent. In fact, because of that the Medical Research Council ( MRC) is closing some of its research stations. It’s one of the main reasons.

Freedom Newspaper: Oh yeah! MRC is closing some of its Malaria Research stations in The Gambia?

Dr. Mbowe:  Yes. Yes. Yes….They have laid off many of their workers.  All is because mainly,the fact that malaria has gone down.  Because malaria is being attacked in this country in different forms.  We have the preventive part and the curative part.  So we fighting the malarial situation in both sides. As a result of that, this have already been registered.  It’s a very good news.  It has gone down 45 percent. 

Freedom Newspaper:  And what will  you attribute Gambia’s malaria success story to?

Dr.Mbowe:  The success of the malaria fight…number one, I think is the environmental sanitation. 

Freedom Newspaper: The President Yahya Jammeh has championed the monthly cleansing exercise, don’t you think this might also contributed to the malaria success story?

Dr. Mbowe:  It had contributed a lot because is part of the environmental sanitation.  As a result of that, the mosquito vector itself has gone down. There is not much breeding ground for the mosquito vector itself. 

Freedom Newspaper: So malaria is  no longer a major health problem in The Gambia?

Dr.Mbowe:  No, it is no longer a major health problem. Now,  we thinking of the these chronic diseases.  In fact, many of the deaths that we registering presently are due to chronic diseases; like hypertension and diabetics. 

Freedom Newspaper: What can you tell us about the President's  HIV/Aids cure program, which you used to be the  Director?

Dr. Mbowe:  Oh, that one we registered success. Thousands of patients and their families benefited from the program.

Freedom Newspaper: Are you really serious Dr. Mbowe… President Jammeh can cure aids?

Dr.Mbowe: I am hundred percent serious.  Hundred percent about it because everything is based on laboratory results.  Before we start the treatment of any patient, we make sure that the CD4 are sitting. Their viral loads are calculated and then after the treatment, the same medical investigations are conducted on these patients again. This is very simple. It’s just like A B C.  Take a patient, who has for example, a viral load of one hundred million before they start President Jammeh’s treatment. Then after three, four weeks, you check the same patient again and then you find out that there are no virus detected.  What can you say?  It has been cured. 

Freedom Newspaper: But critics say that you are just trying to secure your job by serving as a PR for President Jammeh on false aids cure claims?

Dr.Mbowe: I am not… I am not… I am not. I am not. I am basing everything on laboratory and clinical investigations. 

Freedom Newspaper: So it’s wrong for people to accuse you of being unprofessional by supporting the President on a wrong claim?

Dr.Mbowe:  I am a well seasoned professional medical doctor.  Let me tell you….The amount of cases that I have done most of the people sitting there in Europe or America, they have never done such number of cases or operations.  I know what I am telling you. 

Freedom Newspaper:  And all these operations were successful?

Dr.Mbowe:  Of course yes.  I have performed thousands, thousands of operations.  You understand. I am a very well seasoned medical doctor, both from Soviet Union and Ireland. I know what I am telling you when it comes to medicine. 

Freedom Newspaper: With all your claims then,  why can’t the World Bank and UN help the President to realize his dream to cure aids?  Why can’t they support him?

Dr. Mbowe: Is because of the hypocrisy.  Is because of the hypocrisy.  You know these people they think that once you are not there,  part of them…they owned medicine, which is a lie. Medicine does not belong to any institution or any school of thoughts.  Medicine at the end of the day Sir, is the restoration of the sick to health.  Once, any individual medical practitioner is able to come up with any kind, form or type of medical herbs that can create and cure the sick must be acknowledged and commended for. That is the basics of medicine. 

Freedom Newspaper:  So you are implying that the West is just being jealous of President Jammeh?

Dr.Mbowe: Of course yes.  Look it must be noted…It must be noted… It must be noted that medical history…..This is always the problem with medicine. In any medical discovery Sir, let me tell you there must be critics.  It has been here for centuries.  They cannot just come and say that it’s only conventional medicine which is right.  When did Africa has started enjoying conventional medicine? Is about 40-50 years ago. People has been treating ailments  here in the third world, with other different forms of herbs. How many…Do you think the percentage of people going to hospital, is weigh less than those going for this herbal treatment. Since the inception of this program, let me tell you one thing, the (VCT), that is the voluntary counseling and testing. It has increased three folds in this country. Why? Because people,  have confidence in the treatment. The number of patients now going to the hospital have dropped for hypertension, asthma and infertility.

Recently, we just made the infertility test. More than 250 patients, they have conceived from his treatment program.  It has been reported. I am a gynecologist. I don’t think any gynecologist can stand in front of me in this world. Because there is no gynecologist who can teach Dr. Mbowe now what gynecology is. I have seen thousands of infertility cases. 

Freedom Newspaper: Dr. Mbowe, it was reported in the media that some of the patients died in the hands of the President-the ones he was curing. How true is that?

Dr.Mbowe: That is a lie.  That is a lie. That is a lie. It’s not true. It’s not true.  Take it from me 100 percent. I know what I am telling you. It’s not true. 

Freedom Newspaper: So no patient died in the hands of the President?

Dr.Mbowe:  No, no patient has died from this treatment. It’s not true. I have never, ever seen or heard of it.

Freedom Newspaper: Now talking about the clinical research, a Dakar hospital said that there was no scientific evidence available to support the President’s aids cure claim.

Dr.Mbowe: Look let me tell you… Professor Mboob at the end of the day, he is just a biochemist…biologist I think.   He cannot come up with any conclusion from any medical practitioner’s treatment. He himself was given the samples to be tested. He never knew that these were patients from this country.  All what I challenge him…I told him that what you are saying is a lie. You have been given money for a research, that is why you are afraid to tell the world the reality.  And when he conducted his own investigations, what were the results? Undetectable. He himself conducted the first sample before the treatment.  They were having their viral loads high up.  And after the treatment he himself  conducted the same test. There were no viral loads.  So where is the virus?  Before you have a disease I think the pathogen must be there. Am not right? Before you have malaria, you must have the plasmodium. If you don’t have the plasmodium in your system how can you have malaria? It’s very simple. Very simple arithmetic.  Let no man deceive you or try to fool you with anything.  We have been applying the CD 4S. When the CD 4S,  start going down- that means that the patient is being infected.  But once you have CD 4S coming up, what are you telling me?  Is it that we are using ordinary water to treat them or what? Can an ordinary water cure or any pathogen from  any human system?

Freedom Newspaper: So you are saying that Dr. Mboob was just trying to mislead the public?

Dr.Mbowe:  Of course yes, because of his own self interest gains he is receiving from his so called sponsors. People must be realistic in life. In life, I think you should believe in faith, believe in the existence of the lord Allah and know that your life has been predestined.  What you are to get,  it has already be predestined.  Once you have that I think you will always be on the right path. 

Freedom Newspaper: Dr. Mbowe, I can see that you are a man of faith. I appreciate that you are a man of faith. You had a strong passion.  But how is it true that Jammeh got cure for aids and yet you refused to  welcome the CNN journalist Jeff Koinange in Kanilai, when he came there to meet the President.

Dr.Mbowe: He is lying.   Look, that man I spoke to him many times.  He is very funny.  Let me tell you.. In fact, the TV station, the French journalist has to write to me a personal letter apologizing to me.  That look, it was beyond my control because my senior colleagues down there in France dictated what I should write. You could see the hypocrisy of these journalists. She herself wrote a personal letter to me apologizing that I knew everything was right, but it was beyond my control.  I was being dictated by my senior colleagues. I too replied that you should only  believe in faith. You understand.

Freedom Newspaper: Who is this journalist you are talking about?  She works for which media house?

Dr.Mbowe:  The French journalist who covered the story. The TV lady. The French lady.  You know all the journalists were here.  I spoke to all of them.

Freedom Newspaper: How about the former  CNN Correspondent Jeff Koinange. He said he came to Banjul and was refused audience to the President.

Dr.Mbowe: Jeff is a liar.  It’s just like the fake story he wrote for Nigeria.  He was  just at the CNN for his own interest. That’s why at the end of the day what happen to him?  He was being humiliated and sacked by the CNN.  And let me tell you one thing, CNN sometimes they are just there for the interest of the West.  If you check their reporting style, they just  there  to deceive the world.

Freedom Newspaper: What are your proofs that the CNN is biased? What is your justification?

Dr.Mbowe:  You could see the way they reported this case. First of all,  at the start of the reporting, the way they described The Gambia, as poorest, smallest nonsense country down there.  Already, given the impression to the world that how can these people even think of coming up with such a complete case presently. These are simple things. When you follow them and sit and listen to the way even they are reporting, you will know that they are prejudicial against nations like The Gambia. They had their own agenda even before coming here.

Let me tell you one thing. Jeff is a liar. Jeff came here…We shown him everything and he never reported the reality.  In fact, we gave him all the results. Everything was given to him.  I had more than three hours with Jeff himself.  You know what he told me…that Dr. Mbowe, look you are a Western trained doctor…. How can you believe in this thing? I  told him that look, in medicine there is nothing like Western, Cuban, Asian, Jamaican, Gambian traditional.  Medicine is medicine. At the end of the day, anything that can help restore the sick to health should be accepted. 

I went to different Universities. You think any professor or dick and Harry can tell Dr. Mbowe this is this , this is that.  There is no University that I didn’t visited.  I was in the Soviet Union for nine years. I went to Ghana. I went to Ireland Dublin.  I visited all there Universities. So who can convince me?  Lets face the reality.

Freedom Newspaper: Granted, Jeff had an interview with you, but why can’t he interview the President, who is saying that  he has cure for aids? Why can’t he meet the President?

Dr.Mbowe:  Look,  if you come to America, is it easy to get to George Bush like that?  The President has so many constitutional duties.  At the time, when Jeff was coming here, the President was so occupied. Why didn’t he stay to wait for him?  I am the focal person for the treatment. So any information he needs, he can get it from me. Why are you getting all these information from me?  I am very honest. I will tell you the reality, what is on the ground.

Freedom Newspaper:  And I really appreciate that, because this is the first time that you are speaking out like this.  You are very accessible.

Dr.Mbowe: You are welcome. But let me challenge them. Why are they not making noise over the infertility treatment? Tell me. Why are they not making noise over the asthma treatment? 

Freedom Newspaper: And one final question Dr.Mbowe. With regards to Jeff Koinange, are you happy that the CNN fired him?

Dr.Mbowe:  I don’t know much about his relationship with CNN or what, but I just want to send a message. A journalist should be honest wherever you are.  You must be an honest person. Try to report the truth at all times, because you are reporting to the whole world. Report the reality.  The way he reported it was not right. He fails to inform the world  the reality that his Excellency, has discovered the medical herbs that can treat and cure HIV/Aids. He fails to do that.