Why is it that South Africa Struggles to Provide Medications to All AIDS Patients?”
In South Africa, the lives of thousands of HIV-positive people are at risk because the government has not provided life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to many of those who need them. South Africa is one of the countries most affected by HIV/AIDS, with more than five-and-a half-million people living with the virus and at least two-and-a-half million killed by AIDS-related illnesses. The worst shortages of ARVs are in the central Free State province. Outside the Mangaung Community Health Center, its walls and pillars marred by crude graffiti, Lekgotla Nkopane,52, is fiddling with a plastic packet of pills. His hands are dirt-worn, his palms hardened from decades of brutal, mind-numbing toil. His red eyes give him an air of permanent fatigue. “I used to work on construction sites. Now I am too weak to work,” Nkopane says. In a vehicle idling nearby, two young men discuss the latest challenge to South Africa’s attempt to provide urgent antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to millions of HIV
In South Africa, the lives of thousands of HIV-positive people are at risk because the government has not provided life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to many of those who need them. South Africa is one of the countries most affected by HIV/AIDS, with more than five-and-a half-million people living with the virus and at least two-and-a-half million killed by AIDS-related illnesses. The worst shortages of ARVs are in the central Free State province.
