Though widely used around the world, South Africa previously resisted using nevirapine to help protect babies from becoming infected. As I understand the problem in RSA and neighboring countries to a lesser extent, blacks often believed that AIDS was a plot by the white government to control the black population that was rebelling. Even today the number of people that believe that is surprisingly common. In a land where health care is still very limited to populations living in and around towns and cities, people are suspicious of drugs and disease and some politicians even continue spreading the myth. In regions where modern health care is not available (and even sometimes where it is) locals rely on what we would call "witch doctors" for medical advice.
"Researchers say there are no reliable statistics on how many babies nevirapine has saved nationwide. But at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital -- the main source of prenatal and obstetric care for millions of people in Soweto, the sprawling township near Johannesburg -- 25 percent of babies born to HIV-positive women contracted the disease in the mid-1990s, before nevirapine became available. Now that the drug is administered routinely, the infection rate is about 8 percent, doctors say." - Washington Post
