Paul Kasonakoma

Zambia

We heard of a person who went to a conference and ran out of his medicine. He then came home and counted the number of days he missed, then took them all at once. He died. He didn’t know better.

People are afraid of the drugs. If you ask the average Zambian about antiretrovirals (ARVs), they say the person with HIV on treatment dies like a pig – fat, instead of skinny like with AIDS. We say, “Look, we are taking these drugs and we are living.” This makes a lot of sense to people.

We see many side effects with stavudine – peripheral neuropathy and lipodystrophy. People don’t have the capacity to go back to the doctor and say, “This is not working for me.” If people on treatment know how to recognise these symptoms in the early stages, then they can change drugs before it is too late.