The decision to take four tablets for the rest of his life came easily to Pumzile Nywagi (40), who counsels other HIV-positive people in Khayelitsha, a township in the Western Cape, on the importance of taking their anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment.
In a green pillbox marked with each day of the week are the tablets that Nywagi takes in the morning and evening. “I was able to walk again soon after I started anti-retroviral treatment.”
These little white tablets have become the subject of high political drama as the government and civil society tussles about whether a national treatment plan should be extended.
For Nywagi they mean he can live a normal life. When he began the ARV treatment in November 2001, Nywagi’s body was racked by TB and cryptoccocal meningitis.
Speaking at the second anniversary of the Khayelitsha AVR programme run by MÃ