JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, ONGERI JOHN, Nelspruit | Friday
THE Tanzanian government this week ordered the deportation of two South Africans accused of secretly testing a discredited anti-Aids drug on human guinea pigs.
Tanzania’s Ministry of Home Affairs said on Wednesday that Jacques Zigi Visser and Themba Khumalo appeared to have conducted illegal medical trials with various versions of the controversial Virodene drug on patients at Lugalo military hospital in Dar es Salaam.
Virodene’s active ingredient is a highly toxic industrial solvent, dimethyl formamide (DMF), which has been banned for human use in South Africa and elsewhere due to dangerous side effects. Medical researchers writing in the journal Aids Research and Human Retroviruses in 1997 also warn that DMF might actually activate HIV.
Four years ago the African National Congress was seriously embarrassed when its close links with Visser and his ex-wife, Olga Visser, the “inventor” of the drug, emerged publicly.
Tanzania’s home affairs permanent secretary Bernard Mchomvu said on Wednesday the country’s National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) never gave permission for the tests at Lugalo and a second private clinic owned by the country’s inspector general of police, Omar Mahita.
Mchomvu said none of the Virodene formulas used in the trials had been registered with Tanzania’s Pharmacy Board. “And finally, neither of the South Africans has a legal immigration status in Tanzania. Their visas and permits have all expired. They have therefore been ordered to leave the country by Saturday, or face deportation.”
The deportation order is not the first clash with Tanzanian authorities for either Visser or Khumalo.
They were arrested for allegedly illegally importing the PO58, PO59, PO60, PO61 and PO62 versions of Virodene to Tanzania in July last year after the NIMR refused permission for human testing of PO58. Quantities of all five versions of the drug were confiscated during a raid on Viro- dene Pharmaceutical Holdings (VPH) offices by health ministry inspectors in Tanzania’s central Shinyanga region.
Inspectors also seized a consignment of Oxyhumate drugs at Dar es Salaam International airport shortly afterwards, including a carton marked for a Dr Balele at the Lugalo hospital. The consignment was marked as being imported by the Tanzania chief of defence forces, sparking an ongoing investigation into the trials.
VPH is a South African-registered company set up to develop and market a commercial version of Virodene as an anti-Aids medication. The compound was patented as an anti-Aids drug by medical technician Olga Visser after she stumbled on it while working on freezing animal organs for medical research. Virodene has, however, not yet been approved for use by any regulatory authority in the world.
An attempt to fast-track its approval and registration by the Medical Control Council (MCC) in South Africa in 1997 unleashed a political storm after the then health minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, gave the bid her public support, organised a special presentation to the Cabinet and lobbied the issue in Parliament despite MCC concerns about Virodene’s safety.
The controversy forced Thabo Mbeki, who was deputy president at the time, to publicly deny that the African National Congress or its leadership were funding or otherwise commercially involved with Virodene.
Dlamini-Zuma continued to meet with VPH officials, however, and her successor, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, recently visited the Tanzanian clinic where Virodene trials are being conducted.
Tshabalala-Msimang’s spokesperson Jo-Anne Collinge insisted at the time that the visit was part of an official tour of Tanzania and the link with Virodene purely coincidental.
Olga Visser, who remains a close business partner, insisted on Wednesday that Virodene continued to enjoy the highest political support both in South Africa and Tanzania.
She also dismissed the Tanzanian deportation order as “rubbish” and “mischief by someone with an agenda”.
“I met with Tanzania’s inspector general of police two days ago, and both Themba and Zigi met with senior officials today. Nothing has been said about deportations. There was some trouble with the NIMR a while ago, but that has been sorted out,” she said.
Visser has previously insisted that NIMR approval was not necessary because all trials were in military or police hospitals.
Mchomvu insisted, however, that both Khumalo and Visser were in Tanzania illegally after their visas expired. Khumalo’s exemption certificate issued for South African pass-port number 4247-303-94 expired last Friday, while Visser’s visa in South African passport number 4041-888-52 expired on June 21.
“All the relevant authorities, including the health, defence and national service ministries, and the State House have reviewed this matter. The order to leave Tanzania stands,” said Mchomvu.
VPH has, meanwhile, conducted initial tests on Virodene in the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Germany but has yet to release the results.
Court papers from a bitter ownership and patent dispute between VPH shareholders indicate that the company had attempted to sell the drug in Portugal, Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique.
Shareholders are also demanding to know exactly who is funding the trials and who the “secret” majority shareholder is after VPH agreed to sell a stake in the patent rights to former Umkhonto weSizwe cadre Ngelezi Zaccheus Mngomezulu for R5-million.
“The money was never transferred, but the Vissers are being funded by someone and must have spent at least R10-million on these recent trials,” said disgruntled shareholder Charles Fourie. “In fact, Zigi called me from Tanzania just two weeks ago to offer to buy us all out for $5-million (R42,5-million).”
Both Visser and Khumalo were unavailable this week.
South African foreign affairs deputy director for Tanzania, Adriaan Smuts, confirmed that he had received “vague” reports on the deportation.
“Our high commissioner Theresa Solomon spoke briefly with Khumalo on Wednesday and asked for clarification, but he has failed to revert to us. We have therefore put an official on the matter,” said Smuts. – African Eye News Service