People on anti-retrovirals sometimes choose not to take them because they want to get sick enough to qualify for a disability grant. This is one of the factors preventing HIV-positive patients sticking to their life-saving drug regimen, according to University of the Western Cape researchers.Other factor s included:Stigma and discrimination;Unemployment and poverty;Lack of transport;Insufficient food; andTraditional medicine.The study was done in Vredenburg, on the west coast, among 18 HIV-positive patients who did not stick to their anti-retroviral regimen. Unless there is 95% adherence to taking ARVs, patients' lives are at risk, said the researchers from the university's school of public health."Poor adherence is linked with multi-drug resistance and even death resulting from opportunistic infections," wrote researchers Ivo Azia, Ferdinand Mukumbang and Brian van Wyk in the Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine.The public anti-retroviral programme in South Africa, where 6.8million people are HIV-positive, is the world's largest but the researchers said there was relatively little knowledge about the factors that stopped people taking their medication.A 33-year-old woman in the study said gaining access to a disability grant was a strong temptation."Maybe you will qualify for a grant when the doctors [see] you don't have an income and you can't work and you are weak," she said."So most of them, they just. stop the medication because they want to get a grant."A 25-year-old woman said that after her diagnosis her mother put aside a glass, a cup and a plate for her exclusive use."It made me feel like I never wanted to live any more," she said.Unemployment and poverty meant patients could not afford the food they needed to take with their medication, or the R36 taxi fare for the return trip to the ARV clinic."Sometimes, when I have no money for transport, I hike," said a 60-year-old woman.The researchers said: "Some respondents were still visiting traditional healers and religious prophets for prayers and other solutions to their HIV problem."They said poverty and stigma needed to stay at the forefront of clinics' efforts to make sure people take their medication...