Some HIV-positive African patients in Swaziland are so poor that they have resorted to eating cow dung before taking anti-retroviral drugs

The drugs do not work on an empty stomach, so patients have to use dung - mixed with water - instead of food, AIDS activists say. Several hundred people protested in the capital, Mbabane, against the economic crisis in the kingdom. King Mswati III's government has admitted that it is running out of cash. It has asked neighboring South Africa for a bailout. Protest organiser Sipho Dlamini said that the growing hunger was forcing HIV/AIDS patients to eat cow dung. "Some people are now saying they are going to stop taking anti-retroviral drugs because it [requires] that they have food in their stomachs," he said. Swaziland, with a population of about 1.2 million, has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world. About 230,000 people are HIV-positive, of whom 65,000 get free drugs from government hospitals. Dlamini said that the protesters urged the government not to cut health spending. Recently, MP Joseph Madonsela said that state hospitals would run out of anti-retroviral drugs within a couple of months. This was denied by the government. But it admitted that it had asked South Africa for a financial bailout and had introduced austerity measures to curb expenditure. In May 2011, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that Swaziland was facing a serious liquidity crisis. The shortage of money forced King Mswati, who is sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, to cancel his silver jubilee celebrations in 2011. He has an estimated personal wealth of $200 million and each of his 13 wives has a palace paid for by the state.