Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2009. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - May 17, 2009
Claire Keeton
Ten years after she discovered she had HIV, Thandi is remarkably fit and looks about half her age.
This is her 10th year on antiretroviral treatment and she is still taking the very drugs on which she started.
Wearing green wrist bands from the last Comrades, Thandi appeared to be in glowing health this week.
"I started feeling like I wanted to run when I had family problems," says Thandi, the mother of two boys and two girls, and grandmother of three. Her husband had died and she was struggling financially.
"I was 47 years old when I started with 10km and 15km races," she says. "Then I did the City to City (50km) and the Soweto marathon (42km). I then started doing all the long races.
"I have done 12 Soweto marathons and I have done five Two Oceans (56km), but I did not have the money to go to every Two Oceans.
"My dream is to run overseas in the London or New York marathon."
Thandi, who grew up in Kuruman, Northern Cape, has been doing domestic work in Sunninghill, Johannesburg, since 1994. Her employer supports her running and her taking treatment.
"In 1999, I was getting thin and my boss was getting worried, so she took me to a private doctor. He told me he wanted to test my blood and then he told me I was HIV-positive.
"I was so surprised. I couldn't believe it and I was afraid. I thought maybe tomorrow I'd be dead.
"It took about three to four months to accept it and after that I was fine. I went to get treatment and did what the doctors told me."
Thandi's doctor, Francesca Conradie from the Wits Health Consortium, says: "Her viral load (amount of HIV in the blood) is undetectable. When she started (her treatment), her CD4 count (a measure of immune strength) was below 200. Now it runs at more than 1000 (above average)."
Although it was initially hard to confide in her family, Thandi says she now has the support of her sister and brother in-law.
"They did not throw me away. They told me HIV affects everyone and I mustn't be worried."
Evelina Tshabalala is another Comrades runner - and mountaineer - who has HIV. She lives openly with the virus and is the founder of activist organisation Positive Heroes.
Tshabalala has climbed the highest peaks on three continents and has her sights set on the so-called Seven Summits. She aims to be the first HIV-positive woman to reach the top of Mount Everest and the first black woman to climb the Seven Summits. "I'm a role-model because I'm proof that life is not finished when you have HIV," says Tshabalala.
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