'No cure' for HIV in Zimbabwe says UN, following claims from local preacher.

The United Nations in Zimbabwe is reaffirming that people living with HIV and AIDS need to continue with antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to manage their infections, after a local preacher reportedly claimed that he had received divine revelation of an herbal cure.

In a statement released on Wednesday by the UN in Zimbabwe, Dr. Alex Gasaira, World Health Organization (WHO) representative in the country, explicitly stated that 'there is no cure for HIV infection.'

According to media reports, the Zimbabwean minister notified his congregation in the capital Harare on Sunday of the 'cure' for HIV and AIDS. He claimed that a healing plant had been revealed to him by God, sparking a media outcry.

The nation's largest newspaper, the Harare Herald, reported that his claims were scientifically baseless, and that the Zimbabwean Government was actively discouraging the purchase of unapproved medicines.

Zimbabwe saw some 30,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2016, with well over one million people living with HIV accounted for in the same year, according to statistics from UNAIDS; the agency working towards ending the global pandemic as a public health threat, by 2030.

Those...