Chinese herbal product offers new hope to HIV infected persons

By MACHARIA KAMAU

Francis Owino works as a technician in the printing industry. For the last couple of years however, he has not been much productive and has had to take a lot of time off work. He was diagnosed with HIV, the AIDS causing virus and was always down with some opportunistic infection that made his life miserable and was almost giving up on life.

A year ago, a friend told him of the herbal product Savir, introduced in the Kenyan market from Asia. He says he has resumed work and is as productive as his colleagues. The product is an immunity booster.

“I used to be taken ill frequently especially with digestion problems. Before I started taking the Savir supplements, my CD4 count stood at 270 but six months after taking the supplements continuously, my CD4 count had gone up to 380,” he said.

Crisensia Wachira from Nakuru went through a similar experience and says her health has significantly improved since she started using the immunity booster.

She says, “I started using Savir supplement when my CD4 count was 254. I used it for three months, during which I would take two tablets in the morning, one at noon and two at night. When I did my CD4 count after the three months had risen to 600.”

The firm that produces the product, Xiehe, says it has been cleared by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board as a non-scheduled herbal or complementary medicine. The supplement also got the approval of the Kenya Bureau of Standards.

Sujun Tai chairperson Xiehe Kenya said Savir is targeted at patients suffering from life threatening ailments like cancer, diabetes, HIV and Aids, allergies and ulcers.

Like other Chinese firms in Kenya selling herbal food supplements, Xiehe uses multi-level marketing, a strategy where sales agents get paid both for the sales they make as well as for recruiting sales representatives.

“This is a new generation product that raises human immunity, a factor that has been independently researched. It has not been found to have any side effects and this is because it is made from natural herbs,” said Ms Tai.

A report from Beijing’s Youan hospital, which is China’s national Aids treatment centre shows that effects of Savir on consumers include elevation of CD4 count, increase of quantity of the lymph cells and lowering of the number of virus carrier on HIV infected patients. It also suppresses duplication of the virus.CD4 cells are a type of white blood cells that increase the body’s immune system and primarily help initiate the body’s resistance to invasion by microorganisms such as viruses. When a person’s CD4 count is low, they are vulnerable to infections and illnesses.

The supplement works by increasing the formation of antibodies and prevents duplication of viruses in the body amongst other functions.