Every month

This is the amount of medicine (ARV*syrups and vitamins) a 6 months old baby with Aids has to take every month. Since most of the time HIV goes hand-in-hand with a TB infection it usually is even more, because the TB medicine is not displayed. The medicine has to be taken three times a day and causes lots of problems for caretakers.
First and foremost it's the taste. It is very bitter. Most kids don't want to take it and resist fiercely when it is administered. As a result a lot of life-saving medicine ends up being spilled. It also only takes a couple of inaccurate doses of the medicine for the child to develop immunity against it. I don't think I have to explain that that is a bad thing. In South Africa health practioners only have access to two types of ARV medicine for children. So if the one doesn't work anymore, there are not a whole lot of other options.
Another problem is that the medicine needs to be refrigerated. Many people with HIV/Aids are poor. If they do have a fridge, it often doesn't work because of a lack of electricity -so they end up using them as cupboards.
If people don't have a fridge they get capsules to break open and dilute in water, but breaking open capsules almost always causes loss of medicine.
The amount of medicine has to be measured presicely. A lot of kids are raised by their grandmothers who does not possess twenty-twenty vision anymore. For them it is very difficult to read the scale on the syringe.
The ARV medicine for children comes in syrup form. It has a low concentration of the active ingredient, because it is intended for smaller babies. To make sure that older children get enough medicine, the volume have to be increased. To remind you, the amount of ARV's in the picture is for a 6 months' old baby. Just imagine how much that will be when a child is two or three years old.
( A kid has to be at least five years old before it can switch to ARV’s in tablet form)

*= Anti-Retro Viral, the medicine used for treating Aids