Acceptance of HAART

“Many participants did not .. believe in, antiretroviral treatment”

“A study in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, shows that 80% of pregnant women who agree to undergo HIV testing return to collect their results. But of those who discover they are living with the virus, fewer than 50% return to receive drug treatment for the prevention of MTCT [mother to child transmission] of the virus”

“Many youth not on antiretroviral treatment expressed confusion or skepticism about its purpose and value. Several did not understand why they would take medication that cannot cure them…One youth remakred that medications degrade the quality of life…Many youth [taking drugs] described difficulties with, or fear of, side effects. Some based these fears on what they had heard from others [a subtle way of intimating that these fears are irrational]…One youth said: 'Right now I'm doing okay where I am so I'd rather stay off meds because you get really sick when you start them, you're just like 3 months bedridden and I'm not up for that really.'…However, some youth described difficult personal experiences with side effects, such as a young woman with lipodystrophy: 'I was given a medication and I wasn't told that it would shift the body fat in my body, and I was mortified when I saw these really repulsive changes. It bothered me a lot'”

“The government [of Niger] hopes to put 4,000 people on free life-prolonging ARV treatment, but since it began to supply ARV drugs free of charge in January this year, only 350 people have come forward to receive the medication.”

“HIV antiretroviral drugs accounted for $5.7 billion in sales in 2003 and are expected to enjoy continued growth over the next decade, driven by continued rises in HIV incidence and patient capture/diagnosis. In fact in 2014, Datamonitor forecasts the commercial market to have grown to reach $10.2 billion.”

“national data and published reports studied by the CDC showed that 480,000 HIV-infected people ages 15 to 49 should have been getting antiviral drugs in 2003, yet only 268,000, or 56 percent, were given such medication”

“Anglo American estimated that 24% of its 140,000 workers in east and southern Africa were HIV-positive, said Brink. He said about 8,500 of the group's workers were at the stage of HIV where they needed AIDS drugs, but by the end of last year only 2,100 were on the company's treatment programme. "I wish I knew why," he said, noting that 94% of the miner's workers who took AIDS drugs were well, and were back at work…[a little later…] Brink said that 400 Anglo American workers had joined treatment programmes but quit.”

“Through 144 weeks, the study regimen permanent discontinuation rate was 82 (27%) of 299 in the tenofovir DF group and 100 (33%) of 301 in the stavudine group”

“[from January 1995 through June 1999] at least half of the HIV infected patients were not on anti-retroviral treatment at the time of ICU admission [and only 28% using HAART even when it was widely available in 1998 and 1999]”

“[from Table 2: 15 were taking no antiretroviral therapy, 67 were on mono- or dual-therapy and 372 on HAART]”

“The rollout of ARVs in Swaziland has been slow. Only 3,000 people are eligible for the government's free drugs programme this year, rising to 13,000 in 2005. But activists complain that the delivery system is already inadequate for the task.”