Concern for errant ARV patients

Of the 3052 HIV-positive patients on antiretrovirals at Tonga Hospital, in Mpumalanga, 1133 have "vanished".

Staff at the hospital's HIV clinic are concerned that errant patients will contribute to the emergence of drug-resistant strains of HIV, and spread it. The worst time for defaulting ARV patients at the clinic is over the Christmas holidays.

Treatment Action Campaign spokesman Caroline Nenguke said people who defaulted on treatment have to progress to increasingly expensive "second-line" and "third-line" treatment regimes that are expensive and unavailable in generic form.

Officials are worried that drug-resistant strains of HIV will spread so that even first-time users of ARVs will have to be placed on the more expensive treatment regimes.

Clinic social worker Aluwani Nematudi said he struggles to find patients who are supposed to collect their ARVs.

"Our system says we have a lot of defaulters, but when we try to trace them, we can't find them. We don't know if they've died or gone back home," Nematudi said.

Dr Dennis Mkhulisi, head of Tonga Hospital's HIV clinic, said he was doing his best to ensure patients remained on treatment.