Miraculous Aids cure exposes Egyptian military to ridicule

Egypt’s military leaders have been ridiculed after the chief army engineer unveiled what he described as a “miraculous” set of devices that detect and cure Aids, hepatitis and other viruses.

The claim, dismissed by experts and called “shocking to scientists” by the president’s science adviser, strikes a blow to the army’s carefully managed image as the saviour of the nation. It also comes as military chief Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who toppled Mohammed Morsi in July after the Islamist leader ignored mass protests calling for him to step down, is expected to announce he will run for president.

The televised presentation — made to el-Sissi, interim president Adly Mansour and other senior officials — raised concerns that the military’s offer of seemingly inconceivable future devices will draw Egypt back into the broken promises of authoritarian rule, when Hosni Mubarak frequently announced grand initiatives that failed to meet expectations.

“The men of the armed forces have achieved a scientific leap by inventing the detecting devices,” military spokesman Col Ahmed Mohammed Ali wrote later on his official Facebook page. A patent has been filed under the name of the Armed Forces Engineering Agency.

Writer Hamdi Rizk noted that video clips of the presentation had gone viral on social media, with tweets and blogs saying the military had made a fool of itself and damaged its reputation.

“The marshal’s camp has been dealt a deep moral defeat,” he wrote in a column in Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper. “God give mercy to . . . the reputation of the Egyptian army, which became the target of cyber shelling around the clock.”

Professor Massimo Pinzani, a liver specialist and director of the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health at University College London, said he attended a demonstration of the C-Fast device during a visit to Egypt, but “was not given convincing explanations about the technology” and wasn’t allowed to try it for himself. None of the research has been published in a reputable journal.

The uproar escalated when a scientific adviser to Egypt’s interim president Adly Mansour denounced the claim and said it has no scientific base.