Witness to AIDS was first published in South Africa in April 2005 (Tafelberg/NB), where it stayed in the best-seller lists for several weeks, and is now in its fourth printing. It was published in the United Kingdom in August 2005 and in the United States in October 2005 (IB Tauris). The UK edition was re-printed in June 2007. It was published in German in January 2007 (CH Beck Verlag). The Chinese edition was launched in Beijing in January 2010.

Witness to AIDS was reviewed in the Economist, 29 July 2005, the New Internationalist, London, 1 January 2006, by Justice Michael Kirby in the Australian Law Journal, December 2005 ((2005) 79 Australian Law Journal 795), and in Oxford Today, Hilary Term, 2006. It has also been reviewed in many South African publications. The German edition was book of the month for March 2007 in Literaturen.

Witness to AIDS was the joint winner of the 2006 Sunday Times/Alan Paton Prize, South Africa's premier literary award for non-fiction.