To find a cure for HIV/AIDS through traditional medicine, a survey and study of ancient literature (manuscript) [ref: 1] regarding herbal medicinal plants was undertaken, thus, some indigenous candidate medicinal plants were selected to determine an anti-HIV activity [ref: 2], their crude extract were obtained in various solvents for the detection of potential anti-HIV compounds [ref: 3] A sensitive MT-4 cell line was used for MTT assay procedure [ref: 4, 5 & 6].

The availability of anti-HIV drug screening facility by Government of Japan proved very helpful and culminated into several visits to Japan to screen a number of crude medicinal plant extracts. During primary anti-HIV screening some of the extracts revealed moderate to good anti HIV activity [ref: 7] while in one extract the range of safe (toxicity free) anti-HIV, activity was very high (16ug to 2000ug / ml) [ref: 8] which suggests that the crude extract was highly active against HIV in in vitro studies. This was a breakthrough which would prove a beacon of hope in the times to come.