South Africa's former president Thabo Mbeki responded to the HIV epidemic in his country by refusing antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for HIV-positive patients. It is important to ask how the national government responded to the epidemic in the absence of ARV distribution and how this policy translated to the provincial level. As the province with the greatest prevalence of HIV/AIDS, KwaZulu-Natal ... read moreprovides an excellent case study for the comparison between provincial policies and national policies. By comparing speeches, budgets, and government documents from the national government and the government of KwaZulu-Natal, significant differences between the responses were uncovered. It was found that while the national government promoted nutritional programs to combat the epidemic rather than ARVs, the government of KwaZulu-Natal distributed ARVs to provincial hospitals and combined modern medicine with traditional practices to respond to the epidemic. The KwaZulu-Natal government's polices provide an example of a public health approach to an epidemic that married traditionalism and modernism.read less
