Herbal medicine may have killed virus that causes Aids

A herbal medicine may have killed the virus that causes Aids in one patient, cured paralysis in another and made some patients well enough to return home, doctors in China said yesterday.

But they said it was too early to proclaim the drug - Saidefu - a cure for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome because it had only undergone clinical trials for three months. "We have tested five patients, and found an Aids serum antigen turn to negative from positive in one patient," Shao Yiming, a researcher at the China Academy of Preventive Medicine, said in a telephone interview. "This is only an initial result and does not mean that the medicine is effective because the trial treatment was too short and medical samples too few." he said. Peking -Reuter