HIV patients look to traditional medicine

IN A SUNLIT shack on the outskirts of Lesotho's capital Maseru, 34-year-old Lieketseng Lucia Tjatji sits under a black cloth pegged to a tin wall and emblazoned with the head of a lion.

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To her left, a wooden table is weighed down by containers of roots, powders and dried herbs, remedies she now offers to HIV patients who have been cut off from vital medication after US President Donald Trump's aid freeze in February.

"I am a traditional doctor or a witch doctor," Tjatji says, her voice steady. "I have helped people. More and more are coming." They are the desperate of a nation buffeted by poverty and gripped by one of the highest HIV rates in the world with roughly one in four adults living with the virus, according to government data.

Tjatji, too, is HIV positive. A registered traditional healer and fashion designer, she concedes doctors question the efficacy of the treatments she dispenses while urging those on ARVS not to mix their medicines with anything not clinically tested.

But with the government-supplied antiretrovirals she has taken diligently since 2003 now limited to three-month refills because of Trump's cuts - and no guarantee of more, Tjatji is left with few options.

"I don't want to die. I am so young and I don't want to die," she told AFP.