Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

There are some times, like lately

when I've been hungry, or poor, but I've been fortunate to have very temporary periods of want, and have at least had the minimum of life's needs and usually much more. Even at the worst, I have had clean water to drink and a roof over my head.

Some people don't have that luxury, and are so poor that in order to save their lives, and make the drugs that they need continue to work, they eat whatever they can, even dung. Such is life in an impoverished nation in Africa; this is so sad.

Swaziland: HIV patients 'eat dung to make drugs work'
Some HIV-positive patients in Swaziland are so poor they have resorted to eating cow dung before taking anti-retroviral drugs, Aids activists say.

The drugs do not work on an empty stomach, so patients have to use the dung - mixed with water - instead of food, the activists say.

Several hundred people protested in the capital, Mbabane, on Wednesday against the economic crisis in the kingdom.

King Mswati III's government has admitted it is running out of cash.

It has asked neighbouring South Africa for a bailout.

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