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Prof Arthur Obel is hard to please. Friend and foe say he is proud and unpredictable. Others call him an arrogant and intellectual snob.
But the professor of medicine doesn’t care: “Let them call me whatever they want; even a witch doctor if they wish. It does not change what I know about myself.” Very few things bother him. At 74, he says he has seen and done it all. What thrills him are his 21 choice cars – picked from the Mercedes Benz, Peugeot and BMW family – his insatiable obsession with books and Iconaire – the drug he formulated a few years ago and is now using to treat HIV patients.
He has been here before, having formulated several others concoctions he claims can treat HIV. He claims Iconaire increases cd4 count of HIV patients until they get into remission.
“It is not a cure. It boosts their cd4 count, and once it reaches 1860, I stop administering the drug,” he says.
A normal range for cd4 cells is about 500 to 1,500, but people with compromised immunity have lower cells. Obel says his drug can raise cd4 count without using anti-retroviral drugs.
His office at Nairobi’s Loresho estate has cartons filled with Iconaire, and heaps of files bearing patients’ names.
He refuses to reveal the ingredients, as he has experienced sneaky scientists stealing his ideas.