Nigeria’s HIV Patients Lost Free Drugs. Traditional Healers Are Now Charging Them ₦250,000 for a Fake Cure.

We’ve traced how US funding cuts weakened outbreak surveillance in DRC and squeezed research budgets in South Africa. This story shows what those cuts look like at the level of one person deciding whether to sell her furniture.

When President Trump halted PEPFAR funding in January 2025, Aisha (not her real name), an HIV patient in Maiduguri, lost access to the free antiretroviral therapy that had kept her viral load suppressed. PEPFAR partially resumed in February 2025, but with significant budget reductions, part of a global pattern; research by amfAR found at least 1,714 HIV service sites worldwide shut down entirely after PEPFAR payments were terminated or delayed, with almost none able to replace the lost funding. In Nigeria alone, PEPFAR had disbursed over $7.8 billion supporting more than 1.9 million people on ART, in a country with the world’s fourth-largest HIV burden.

Facing a facility with nothing left to give her for free, Aisha sold her household furniture to pay a traditional healer who promised a permanent cure after a single treatment, marketed as “Islamic medicine.” She’s not alone. SciDev.Net’s reporting found a growing pattern across Kano, Bauchi, Gombe, and Maiduguri, and into Niger and Chad, of HIV patients abandoning proven ART for unregulated alternatives sold through offline networks and social media. In Kano, one healer, Abdullahi Yunus Umar of the Kashful Aleel Islamic Medicine Centre, charges ₦45,000 for what he markets as HIV treatment and up to ₦250,000 for “advanced AIDS regimens,” claiming his remedies have cured patients across four states, something modern medicine hasn’t achieved for any patient, anywhere.

Dr. Abubakar Ibrahim, senior registrar at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, was direct: “scientifically, there’s no cure to HIV using medication. The ART we use in Nigeria cannot cure HIV.” What ART actually does is suppress the virus to undetectable levels, giving the immune system room to recover, not eliminate it from the body. It’s the same distinction we’ve made before between traditional plant knowledge that’s been rigorously tested into real medicine, and untested claims sold on faith to people with nowhere else to turn.

What You Can Do

• If you’ve lost access to free ART due to funding cuts, don’t stop treatment entirely. Ask your facility about reduced-cost options or other clinics still receiving supply before considering any alternative.
• No treatment, traditional or pharmaceutical, has cured HIV. Anyone claiming otherwise, regardless of how it’s framed, is making a claim medicine cannot currently support.
• Report predatory health claims where you can. Charging desperate, funding-starved patients up to ₦250,000 for a fabricated cure is exploitation, not alternative care.

This article covers a sensitive health topic. It is for general education and does not replace professional medical advice. If you’ve lost access to HIV treatment, please contact your nearest health facility about continuing care options rather than seeking unproven alternatives.