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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Of remedies and poisons: recreational use of antiretroviral drugs in the social imagination of South African carers
Authors:Larkan, FionaISNI
Van Wyk, Brian
Saris, Jamie
Year:2010
Periodical:African Sociological Review (ISSN 1027-4332)
Volume:14
Issue:2
Pages:62-73
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:AIDS
medicinal drugs
illicit trade
health care
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/24487595
Abstract:During an ethnographic study of barriers to, and compliance with, antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in the South Africa's West Coast region, the authors came across a general sense amongst health care providers that there was a lively illicit trade in antiretroviral medications. In itself, this is seen to be a barrier to adherence for many of their patients whose medication is traded to, or stolen by, drug dealers. Independent anecdotal evidence is emerging about this trade, though there has been little hard data verifying the existence of a recreational market for ARVs. While there are rumours that Efavirenz (brand-named Stocrin in South Africa) (some of whose side effects are hallucinogenic) is being used in the manufacture of crystal methamphetamine (locally 'tik'), such reports, in themselves, do not seem able to explain the ubiquity (and the confidence) of the belief in this trade amongst the health care providers with whom the authors have interacted. This paper explores aspects of the off-label trade of ARVs (as the authors have come to know it) and, as importantly, how rumour and knowledge of this trade has gained increasing currency in the social imagination of health and social care workers. This, it is argued, could precipitate a real crisis in the government's public rollout programme. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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