Health
HIV-positive Pittsburgh says there’s a lot to learn about COVID from other deadly epidemics
When the coronavirus curfew was announced in March, some Pittsburghs who have lived with HIV for decades now feel what they describe as post-traumatic stress from the first epidemic. did.
“that is already Mark Wagner, who was first diagnosed with HIV in 1985, thought, “And this could take you out much faster.”
Several Pittsburghs living with HIV are scientific turmoil, social isolation, reluctance to adopt public health measures, and the president of the United States. How many people rejected the death of the elderly from COVID-19 to open up the economy is how the health of gay men is inherited during the AIDS crisis, where homophobia is widespread. He said he reminded him.
“When Reagan was president, he didn’t want to admit HIV,” Wagner said in December. President Ronald Reagan did not publicly mention the disease until 1985, a few years after he began killing people. “As you can see on Trump. He tells people not to worry about it and not to wear a mask.”
Even some of the same scientists at the forefront of the HIV crisis, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and former CDC director Robert Redfield, have returned to play a central role in recent pandemics. Some healthcare professionals who worked during both HIV and COVID epidemics said they could continue to work on COVID-19 and gain insights by comparing both epidemics to prevent future epidemics. I did.
The HIV and AIDS epidemic has been going on for over 40 years and More than 32 million people have died worldwide..Still Thousands die each year in the United States, Even if there are drugs to prevent the virus from doing harm.
COVID killed more than 2 million people in just one year.
Stuart Fisk, director of the Allegheny Health Network’s Inclusion Health Center, worked with HIV-positive patients in San Francisco in the 1980s, and the high mortality rates of African Americans at the time and now are a general failure of the population. Said showing. Health infrastructure.
“There is no genetic reason” for the racial disparity seen in both epidemics, he said. “It’s just racism, social isolation, and poverty.”
New fashion
Mike Hermann, who was HIV-positive in 1985, said the COVID-19 pandemic separation reminded us of the early 1980s when it was unclear how AIDS was widespread. He knew that a gay man like himself was ill, but he didn’t know exactly how to do it.
“I was at home a lot at night. I didn’t meet people,” he said. “When I traveled, I stayed in my room. I don’t go anywhere.”
The most difficult part of the COVID-19 pandemic for him was quarantine. Hermann, like many HIV-positive people, has been worried that HIV may make them more susceptible to COVID-19. Early science shows that this is not the case if you are taking medication for it, but Hermann (63) is more at risk because of his history of pneumonia, bronchitis, and high blood pressure. I am worried that it has been done.
“I really feel that if I get this, I’ll die because my lungs will collapse and I can’t handle it,” he said. He hasn’t returned to the gym since the gym was first closed and has only been to a restaurant once.
Mike Hermann said that when the left-behind people were hit hardest, not enough was done to stop the illness. (Photo by Ryan Loew / Public Source)
Dr. Charles Rinaldo, who has been studying a group of HIV-positive men at the University of Pittsburgh for 36 years, says that HIV status alone is probably at increased risk because many people control the virus with daily medications. Said there would be no. However, according to a new study, men living with HIV have other chronic illnesses that put them at greater risk, Rinaldo said.
People who are HIV positive show signs of aging sooner. According to Rinaldo, they develop heart disease, lung disease, and kidney disease earlier and more often than others of their age. These diseases increase the risk of dying from COVID-19. Because an imbalanced number of black men are infected with HIV This is one of the reasons why more black men are dying from COVID-19...
Hermann said the left-behind group suffered the most and wasn’t doing enough to stop the disease. In the early days of the AIDS crisis, it was because he was gay. And now he said it was because he was older and not in perfect health.
The attitude among many who don’t wear masks or ignore public health measures is “it’s just attacking older people, they’ll die anyway,” he said. “These are essential people. Don’t worry.”
Hermann recalled the early days of taking AZT when Donald Trump advertised hydroxychloroquine, which had not proven effective in fighting COVID-19. medicine, Advertised by Dr. Anthony Fauci, He had to get a blood transfusion. Eventually he had to stop taking it because it made him anemic. Later, it was discovered that AZT was prescribed in unnecessarily large amounts.
“Initially, our relationship with Dr. Fauci was touch-and-go,” Wagner said. “He was young at the time and we were angry that things weren’t moving.”
Hermann exercises in a training video of silver sneakers in the morning, after which text 100 on his phone contacts the positive affirmations of the day. It took him 30 minutes each day to send the text, which has taken on new importance to him during the pandemic quarantine. But one day he said he was depressed after sending a text message to everyone.
“I’m like:’What are you going to do today?'” He said. “I didn’t have to think about it. There was always something to do.”
Hug protection
Yvette Williams has been an HIV patient in Fisk for over 20 years and is now working with him to help others learn to be HIV positive by counseling and making appointments. She recently asked Fisk: “Will this remind you of HIV when it started?”
According to Williams, those who refuse to wear masks are now reminded of those who refuse to wear protective equipment during sex.
Williams, who recently received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, feels that the social distance from COVID-19 makes new HIV patients more stigmatized, even though the precautions are related to COVID. I said it might be.
“I was always hugging my clients,” she said. “No one can hug you. It makes you feel the stigma of the virus.”
Wagner said the lack of coordinated federal response and false information about COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic reminded him of the HIV crisis.
“At that time, patients often had to be their own doctors and had to learn about the immune system and illness,” he said. “It was still a very, very scary time. We didn’t know what was happening in our bodies or when we would die.”
Some of the basic technologies that public health professionals are now relying on are: Includes the most commonly used coronavirus tests, Came out during the HIV and AIDS epidemic. According to local HIV experts, this epidemic could also provide clues to the future of COVID-19 and other pandemics.
There are currently coronavirus vaccines that have the potential to eventually eradicate COVID-19, but it can be difficult to fully realize this potential. Current HIV drugs significantly reduce the viral load in HIV patients and often do not spread to those who have sexual intercourse. Prophylactic drugs can also prevent people in high-risk groups, such as men who have sex with men, from becoming infected with HIV first.
However, despite the availability of these drugs, there were approximately 40,000 new cases in 2018 in the United States. This is the latest year for which information is available. In 2016, more than 6,000 Americans died of AIDS. The 9th most common cause of death in Americans between the ages of 25 and 34..
Mark Wagner said there was confusion about the early science of both epidemics. “At that time, patients often had to be their own doctors and had to learn about the immune system and illness. It was still a very, very scary time. What is happening in our bodies? I didn’t know when I would die. “(Photo by Jay Manning / Public Source)
Dr. McKee Friedman, co-director of Pitt’s LGBT Health Research Center, said the disease persisted, especially among young gay black men living in the South. “If we think of our social safety nets as a society and think of less privileged areas in the community, we have a population and place with less access and access to and more stigmatized and slanderous people,” he said. Said. You will think that HIV is the highest. “
In addition, although 86% of HIV cases have been diagnosed, more than a quarter of the diagnosed cases do not receive adequate medical care, and 40% of those cases have not yet been virally loaded. .. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Fisk said that the underlying epidemic of HIV is the uprooted public health infrastructure of the opioid and COVID-19 epidemics. He focused on “healthcare widgets” such as procedures and vaccines that can make a profit more quickly with information, contact tracing and information campaigns that could reach those who need it. He said he had sacrificed a preventative local health force that could respond.
“But they don’t make money,” he said. “And we have a healthcare system that is primarily driven by money.”
Oliver Morrison is a public source environmental and health reporter.He can reach at [email protected] Or on Twitter @ORMorrison..
This story was confirmed by Punya Bhasin.
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