4.3 Hiv/aids as a developmental problem  (Page 2/2)

Help for Aids

Aids sufferer’s radio is “vital”

Maali-Malixolegwatyu

That is what a visitor will come across somewhere in among the hundreds of squatters’ shacks in New Rest, Guguletu.

It’s not so easy to gain access to this shack. The secret is to go to a bedroom window around the back of the shack and to explain the reason for your visit.

Ms Noberia Koko (37), who lives here, is alone, blind – and bed-ridden.

After chatting for a while Koko hears that the purpose of the visit is to have an interview. She asks her guests to fetch her younger sister before they are allowed into the house.

After about thirty minutes Ms Ruth Koko arrives and goes to the open window as usual. The keys are handed to her.

Once the visitors are in the house, the Xhosa radio station, Umhlobo Wenene (“Your true friend”), is immediately turned down somewhat.

On being asked why the radio was playing so loudly, Koko replies that it is “vital” to her.

“I am on antiretroviral medication and I have to know what time it is.”

“When you are on these tablets you have to take them regularly – at exactly the prescribed time.”

In the tiny room with its three beds, she talks sadly about her only daughter, Nomonde (22), who used to look after her. “She left recently to work in George,” she says quietly.

“She left home with a priest on 10 November, saying that she had found work.

“I don’t believe that it’s true. I suspect she is involved with him.”

She explains that she has to “feel” the size and texture of her tablets to determine which to take at certain times daily.

Koko relates how she became ill in 1999 when her battle against tuberculosis started.

“A year later, after a blood test, the doctor told me that I was HIV positive.”

According to Koko this was the start of a “long, uphill battle” involving sangomas, relatives and medical practitioners.

“People said my condition had been caused by some ‘evil’ that had been inflicted upon me, while the doctors told me that it had something to do with my HIV status,” says Koko.

After what the antiretroviral medication has “done to her” she feels that it is the best option. She firmly believes that people should not hesitate to use these drugs.

Die Burger, 1 December 2004

In this report from Die Burger of 1 December 2004 we read about medication that is available to HIV patients. We also read in the report on page 26 that less than 10% of all people who are dependent on such drugs, have access to them.

Activity 2:

To do research about the successful effects of antiretroviral drugs

[lo 1.4, 1.5, 3.1, 3.2]

Criticise or defend the following statements:

1. Antiretroviral drugs only support the health of people who are infected with HIV and they do not cure such people.

2. All people in South Africa have equal access to antiretroviral drugs.

(If you disagree with the latter statement, discuss possible steps that could lead to a more equitable distribution of these drugs.)

Where are antiretroviral drugs available, and at what price?

Which special products do you know of that are specifically aimed at alleviating the suffering of people who have been infected with HIV?

Assessment