KENYA: Pastors Burn HIV Medications After Declaring Patients Healed By Jesus

Pentecostal pastors in Kenya are charging HIV patients to burn their medications and then tell them they’ve been cured by the power of Jesus. Via the Washington Post:

The “cure” is not free, and some people say they shell out their life savings to receive a miracle blessing and quit taking the drugs. Margaret Lavonga attended a healing prayer service several years ago. She said she paid money for a prayer cure and nearly ended up dead after the pastor told her and others to stop taking their medicines. “We were very desperate after realizing we had been infected as young women,” she said. At the church, she was asked to pay the equivalent of $12 to be accepted for the healing ceremony and $24 at the end of the ceremony. The pastor then confiscated her drugs and those of four others and set them ablaze. The group was asked to undergo a test at a certain clinic in Nairobi, where they were all declared cured.

When the patients then get sick and die, the pastors say their faith wasn’t strong enough.