Kemri ‘Aids drug’ that failed to make a mark

By Kenneth Kwama

Kenya: Kenyan scientists stunned the world in 1990 when they unveiled a drug that was said to cure HIV/Aids. At that time, Aids was still a mystery and researchers from all over the globe were struggling to figure it out.

The development of the drug christened Kemron was spearheaded by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) under its then director Davy Koech and lead researcher Prof Arthur Obel.

So expectant was the world that many Africans voiced high hopes that Kemron would offer relief from the devastating epidemic.

Soon after the ‘discovery’, patients from neighbouring countries and even the US began flocking to Kenya in search of treatment.

 The Kenyan ‘wonder drug’ was accorded so much hype by world media that America’s most prominent basketball player, Magic Johnson, who declared that he was HIV-positive around the time of the launch, was said to have been put on the drug.

After publication of the initial results in two medical journals, Kemron was introduced in a public ceremony attended by Kenya’s then President, Daniel  Moi, Dr Koech and Prof Obel, the chief research officer at Kemri.

Although the scientists did not contend that they had found a cure for the disease, their work was hailed as a major step in the fight against Aids and a major victory for African science. The Government even announced plans to put up a manufacturing plant for the drug.

“Skeptical scientists said the research results, so uniformly positive, seemed almost too good to be true, and noted that the institute had not conducted controlled trials in which Kemron would be compared with other treatments like AZT (the only antiviral drug licensed for use against Aids in Western countries) or dummy pills,” reported New York Times on October 3, 1990.

Hope started building in February 1990, after Kemri’s announcement of what it referred to as “remarkable recovery” in Aids victims treated with Kemron. Dr Koech reported that on average, each patient in the study gained five kilogrammes.

10-month study

The institute’s newsletter, which headlined Kemron as A miracle drug against Aids, reported: “Most striking, about 10 per cent of the patients actually tested negative for the antibody that is associated with the Aids virus.” It went on: “The only side effect reported during the 10-month study was an increased appetite in the majority of patients.”

The New York Times reported that short clinical trials of Kemron supported by the World Health Organisation in five African countries did not find the dramatic health benefits reported by Dr Koech. The newspaper quoted scientists familiar with the studies, who seemed to concur that the drug had a bit of effect because there were some signs of temporary effects on blood cells.

Kemri’s efforts to patent the drug were disputed by the president of the Amarillo Cell Culture Company of Texas, Dr Joseph Cummins, who claimed it was his technology that first manufactured the equivalent of Kemron and supplied the drug to the Kenyans.