No HIV drugs at all -- and still alive

Criselda Kananda-Dudumashe was 29 and seven months pregnant. She was told she had two years to live, and her unborn baby six months.

When radio and TV personality Criselda Kananda-Dudumashe learnt she was HIV positive in 1998, her partner said: "Ag, don't worry, we will die together if it leads to such."

She was 29 and seven months pregnant. She was told she had two years to live, and her unborn baby six months.

In her book You Are Never Alone, launched this week, Kananda-Dudumashe writes: "I was dying. That's all that went through my head."

"It's taken me 10 years to write this book because every time I wrote I would be hurt and emotional and then I would stop and continue after healing from the emotions each chapter brought," said Kananda-Dudumashe.

The HIV/Aids activist said she had "never taken antiretrovirals" and backed Thabo Mbeki and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on HIV/Aids.

HIV in SA: a tale of hope and despair

Mbeki stopped the provision of ARV s, while Tshabalala-Msimang said lemons, beetroot, African potatoes and garlic were better treatments .

"The issue the former president was stating was: 'I hear that you've come up with the drugs, but I don't think that what you've come up with is good enough.'

"I don't think this virus alone would cause so much damage ... What are the psychological effects and nutritional defects of the people who become infected? That was the context," she said.

"It's important that you have a better relationship with food, that you know you can't be having breakfast of amagwinya [vetkoek] every day and lunching on ngekota [bunny chow]," she said.

She was not saying people shouldn't be on medication, Kananda-Dudumashe said, but emphasised that they should "read and know their options".

When she learnt her status, her doctors informed her that because her immune system was still strong they could not give her drugs.

"I was part of the generation that was told to wait for their immune systems to be weak and then come back for medication, because there was a cap on the CD4 count back then. It had to be at a certain level to qualify for medication.

"When you walk away from the doctor's rooms you can't help but be despondent.

"What must I do? What must happen now? I am so grateful for that experience because it forced me to look at what I can do for myself."

Kananda-Dudumashe's approach to managing her condition is not widely supported.

Wits HIV Professor Francois Venter said: "She will eventually die without treatment. It is that simple. There are no alternatives to ARVs currently, and people fishing in alternative medicine pools are going to reap illness and death, while infecting those closest to them. ARVs are so safe, we recommend them whatever your immune status.

"Mbeki and his cabinet still need to explain all the unnecessary Aids deaths and paediatric infections he was responsible for, due to the dreadful denialism phase."