Despite ridicule from the international community, Egypt’s military says it will move forward with testing a new machine that it claims can cure both HIV/AIDS and the hepatitis C virus (HCV), the Los Angeles Times reports.

The military’s so-called “Complete Cure Device”—a contraption consisting of a grip handle connected to a long antenna-like probe and sometimes a box—originally made media headlines in February when it was slammed for its tenuous grasp of the science surrounding both life-threatening diseases. (The presence of chronic hep C in Egypt is 10 percent, the highest in the world.) The machine’s makers claim it works by breaking apart pathogens in a person’s blood stream, although it is unclear how.

Abdel Fattah Sisi, the former military chief who was recently sworn in as president of the North African country, claims the machine has cured some people so far and will be tested on 160 more Egyptians during the next six months. However, even the science adviser to the former interim president, Adly Mansour, has said the device has no scientific basis.

The military’s “miracle cure” announcement occurred the same day a prominent international human rights activist’s bid to be released from prison was denied.

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