During the therapy, the virus mutates to defend itself from the multiple attacks from the ARVs. In most cases HIV testing will give a negative result giving the patient a false impression of 'cure'. The patient will also feel rejuvenated, resume an unprotected sex life and pass on the mutated virus. There is debate going on in Zambia on the ethics of prescribing ARVs, which stops the virus from reproducing itself, to a population that cannot afford it and a medical infrastructure that is so weak it cannot deliver even the most basic health needs. Zambia's cash-strapped hospitals can neither afford routine HIV tests nor monitor the safe use of any drug let alone ARVs.
Patients go on the drugs knowing that it's an expensive life commitment, but they are desperate.
They will probably not be able to afford the drugs after a while. Kawimbe, now a private practitioner, owns the only clinic in the southern African country that has the facilities to monitor the safe and controlled use of ARVs. Dr. Dorothy Kasonde, a private medical practitioner who also prescribes ARVs, believes that the only way to suppress the mutant virus is to have early diagnoses of HIV and tonnes of ARVs made available to infected people. But this could be a utopian dream. Medical doctors say it takes about two to three weeks for the virus to clear from the blood stream, but it is not known how long it takes to clear from other sites like lymphnodes, veins, and liver.