‘A Virus and Nothing Else’: the Effect of ART on HIV-Related Stigma in Rural South Africa

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Abstract
While the World Health Organization acknowledges the potential of antiretroviral therapy to reduce HIV-related stigma, few studies examine the nature of this linkage. This article discusses the connection between ART and HIV-related stigma, using qualitative analysis of interviews with HIV-positive adults at a rural South African clinic. The data has two main implications for ART’s role in stigma reduction: it strengthens the plausibility that ART can reduce stigma through weakening HIV/AIDS’s link with disfigurement and death, and shows that ART enables the establishment of spaces for support, which reduce stigma through normalization of the disease.

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