Egyptian army delays rollout of ‘AIDS detecting machine’

Egypt’s army on Saturday said it would delay for six months the public use of a device previously announced as being able to treat and cure hepatitis C and AIDS viruses.

The postponement of the device was made two days before a scheduled date set by the army for putting the machine to use at military hospitals, UAE-based daily Gulf News reported on Sunday.

“The delay will continue until the end of the experimental period related to the follow-up of patients being treated by the device... this takes six months,” army medical services chief Maj. Gen. Jamal a-Serafi said, according to the newspaper.

In what had been dubbed earlier this year as a “unprecedented scientific breakthrough,” the device, named C-fast, had also been touted to “eliminate the C virus with a cost tens of times less that its foreign likes, and is 90 percent successful,” an Egyptian army spokesman said in a statement.

The news of the machine triggered satires and parodies on social media an TV programs after an army medical staffer said the equipment draws blood from the patient with HIV or AIDS, destroys the virus and returns it as nutrients “like grilled meatball” to the patient.

And many in the scientific community are also skeptical.

The initial prototype operated like a mechanical divining rod, appearing to swing towards people who suffer from hepatitis C, and remaining still next to patients who are not infected, UK newspaper The Guardian reported.

However, one Nobel prize-winner said that the device “simply does not have sufficient scientific foundation.”

Essam Heggy, an adviser for former Egyptian interim President Adly Mansour claimed that the device was a “scientific scandal for Egypt,” and had no clear scientific basis.