Today makes it six years since the Presidential Alternative Medical Treatment Programme (PAMTP) started. Hundreds of people have been successfully treated and hundreds more on the waiting list.

The treatment programme, we could recall, started amidst great speculations and criticisms, but the president, convinced of the efficacy of his treatment coupled with faith in the Almighty Allah and the strong conviction in the authenticity of what he is doing, forged ahead. Now, six years after the wonderful results produced by the treatment programme, it has put all critics to shame and rendered their speculations invalid.

Activities to commemorate the sixth Anniversary of the PAMTP would be observed later today at the July 22 Square. We therefore wish to call on Gambians and all people of African descent resident in the country to come out in their thousands to grace the occasion. It has to be understood that the commemoration of the breakthrough is not an event for only the patients who have been treated by the programme.

It is an opportunity for all of us to demonstrate our pride and dignity as Africans and also prove to the whole world that Africa has always been contributing to the advancement of humanity and would continue to do so.The fact that Africa and The Gambia in particular is the first to discover the cure for AIDS despite the so-called advancement of the industrialised countries in science and medicine, is itself worthy of celebration.

In fact, the success of the PAMTP in the treatment of diseases has made some in the West, out of frustration, to claim that they also have a cure for such diseases.

Let us all come out to show appreciation and happiness that it is an African who paved the way for the treatment of AIDS using traditional herbal medicine.

We wish all and sundry a happy Breakthrough anniversary.