CAIRO — Egypt’s military said Saturday that a device it claimed it invented to cure AIDS and hepatitis C needs six more months of testing.
The army had earlier promised to reveal the technology to the public next Monday after making what experts dismissed as an outlandish claim last February.
At a news conference then, the head of the army’s Engineering Agency said the military had produced an “astonishing, miraculous” set of inventions that could detect AIDS, hepatitis and other viruses without taking blood samples and also purify the blood of those suffering from the diseases.
The claim caused an uproar among scientists and the public, with many pointing out that the technology had not been properly verified. It was also lampooned in a famous satirical program that has now been taken off the air.
The assertion hit a sensitive nerve in Egypt, where Hepatitis C is an epidemic.
Some studies estimate that up to 10 percent of 86 million Egyptians have it, making it the country with the highest prevalence in the world.
At a news conference Saturday in a military hospital in Cairo, a military doctor said the blood purification device needed further tests before it could be released to the public.
Saturday’s news conference notably dropped any mention of the device as a cure for AIDS, referring only to hepatitis.
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