Lehlohonolo Mathetsa’s husband died on the 18th of February due to an AIDS related illness. He had been on the ARV waiting list since October, when his CD 4 count was only 59. ‘As he was ill, they gave him tablets called Bactrim. He was told there were no drugs’, said Mathetsa.
Evelyn has a five year old daughter who has been on ARVs since 2004. ‘They (doctors) said the child was resistant to the treatment she had always been taking. They prescribed different medicines for her. When I got to the dispensary, they told me the third drug was not available’, said Evelyn.
Non-governmental organisations in the Free State believe that many AIDS patients died as a result of the moratorium. They put the blame on the provincial government. ‘In the Free State, we have been losing about 30 people a day because of this shortage of drugs’, said Sello Mokhaliphi, the Free State spokesperson of the Treatment Action Campaign.
