ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on community understanding and experience of health and home-nursing problems associated with an inadequate and polluted water supply. South Africa is one of the countries in southern Africa most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The prevalence of infection has been estimated to be as high as 37 per cent among 20–24-year-old pregnant women in rural KwaZulu-Natal and the prevalence of HIV in parts of the province is double the national average for South Africa. Free nutritional supplements, vitamins and limited antibiotics, antifungals and analgesics are available at some of the state hospital-run support clinics for people living with HIV/AIDS, but these are not available to the rural poor for whom such clinics are not accessible. Some of the HIV positive clients treated at the local Philani clinic have been turned away from communal water and imifino collecting activities because of the perceived stigma.
