TopNews China

South Africa is struggling with a dangerous new drug frenzy that is posing a huge risk to the nation's fight for the prevention of AIDS. A street medicine popularly known as "whoonga" is a cocktail containing the anti retroviral (ARV) medication that has been suggested to persons suffering from HIV.

Due to the high demand for the medicine, there have been an increasing number of thefts of AIDS drugs all over the nation. The ARVs are crushed and smoked along with some rat poison, detergent and marijuana for getting intoxicated. The powder is reportedly so very addictive that users get addicted to it in only a few days.

One of the drug users, 31-year-old Jomo, whose eyes have turned red and glazed after having some deep drags on a joint, said that if he didn't get to smoke the drug, he gets pains and doesn't get sleep till he smokes some more of the drug.

Jomo along with his fellow whoonga addicts who got together in front of a church in a side street at Durban, smoke around a maximum of thirty packets of the drug daily for a price of nearly $160. People even steal for these drugs.