No, Gammora is not a 'cure' for HIV. False promises and fake medicine being sold on social media
IN SHORT: Social media posts advertising a drug called "Gammora" claim that it can treat and even "cure" HIV. But these claims are false. Gammora is not available for sale anywhere - these advertisements are scams - and the drug has not been proven to effectively treat HIV.
Dozens of TikTok videos, Facebook posts, Instagram reels and even dedicated accounts on X are advertising a "cure" for HIV. (Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is a viral disease which attacks the body's immune system.) But although some of these posts have accumulated tens of thousands of views, their claims are false. There is still no cure for HIV and claims about Gammora are nothing new.
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In 2023, Africa Check and fellow fact-checking organisation PesaCheck both debunked claims about Gammora being a cure for HIV. As far back as 2018, health journalism outlet Bhekisisa picked apart the "bad science" of Zion Medical, the Israeli company manufacturing the drug. But in 2026, Africa Check has noticed more claims about the drug spreading online.
Zion Medical has been renamed Code Pharma, and is now located in the Netherlands, but was still developing Gammora in early 2026. This is when Africa Check identified various claims on social media ranging from those calling the drug a "cure", to promises that it can replace existing HIV therapies, to advertisements claiming that doctors have been "fired" after using Gammora to cure HIV-positive patients.
This false information is dangerous and exploitative. It may encourage people living with HIV to stop treatments which are known to be effective. And people may waste their money on fake versions of a drug that isn't a "cure" to begin with.
Gammora not for sale, products on social media are fakes
Dr Eynat Finkelshtein, Code Pharma's chief scientific officer, told Africa Check that it "does not sell, has never sold, and has not authorised the sale or distribution of this product in any form, including to private individuals". Finkelshtein said that the company was aware of social media accounts and posts claiming to sell the drug, but stressed that these were "scammers" and not associated with Code Pharma or Gammora.
Code Pharma has tried to take legal action against them where possible, and occasionally been successful. "However," Finkelshtein said, "despite our efforts, such fraudulent activity is ongoing, and Code Pharma does not have the ability to fully control or eliminate these unauthorized actions."
In one case, Finkelshtein was aware of local authorities prosecuting individuals involved in the sale of fake HIV cures advertised as Gammora. In 2024, two Malawian women pled guilty to selling the antibiotic gentamicin disguised as Gammora, which the women advertised on TikTok as a "cure" for HIV.
Code Pharma has "decided to discontinue the use of the name Gammora as a precautionary measure", Finkelshtein said, "in order to mitigate public confusion and reduce the risk of further frauds".
So any social media posts advertising Gammora are false. But even if the drug were available, it would not be a "cure" for HIV.
Gammora 'still under evaluation', no proof that it 'cures' HIV
Code Pharma has never claimed that Gammora cures HIV, and Finkelshtein told Africa Check that "the drug is still under evaluation and is currently undergoing clinical trials". However, Code Pharma has referred to Gammora as a "potential cure" for HIV, although scientific research proving that the drug is at all effective against HIV is lacking.
This lack of evidence and misleading wording was heavily criticised by Bhekisisa in 2018, when Code Pharma was still trading as Zion Medical. At the time, Bhekisisa pointed out that the company had claimed to have carried out "clinical trials" of Gammora which were never registered with relevant medical authorities, in partnership with a health non-profit that said it had no relationship with the company. Bhekisisa also noted that important information about the trials themselves, such as how many people participated, was missing from any description of the research.
In 2026, slightly more information is available about Code Pharma's research, but it still isn't very promising. For example, a registered clinical trial of Gammora exists but, despite estimating that it would be completed by late 2025, the trial registry indicates that the clinical trial is still recruiting participants, and has not posted any results.
Some information about this trial is accessible via an academic poster presented at the conference HIV Drug Therapy Glasgow 2024. The poster describes the "preliminary results" of a trial conducted on 13 patients, rather than the planned 40, which would still be on the low end of a typical sample size for this kind of trial. Six of these patients were prescribed a standard course of anti-retroviral (ARV) medication. ARVs can reduce the levels of HIV in an infected person's blood to the point that the virus is undetectable and untransmittable to others. The other seven patients in the trial were given the same ARV treatment, as well as a course of treatment with Gammora.
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The poster does not include the full results of the trial, but does include several graphs which show that metrics like the average levels of HIV in a patient's blood were not notably different between the two groups.
This does not prove that Gammora is totally ineffective at treating HIV. These are incomplete results from a trial with a very small sample size. However, this provides no additional proof of Gammora's effectiveness, nor does it address the "bad science" that Bhekisisa criticised in 2018.
Anyone claiming to sell Gammora online is peddling a fake product, but even if Gammora were available, there is no evidence that it "cures" HIV, or even treats HIV as well as current standard therapies.
