About Us → News & Events +TALK: GARY BLICK, MD | Long Term COVID

The following is a transcript between Karl and Dr. Blick.

DR. BLICK

This is the way to fight stigma.

KARL

Hello there. Welcome to plus talk on Plus life, where we’re all about turning positive into a plus. I’m so happy to welcome my guest back today, Dr. Gary Blick. He’s the founder of Healthcare Advocates International. It’s been a few years. Doc, how’s it going?

DR. BLICK

It’s going very, very well. We survived the Covid Pandemic, that’s for sure in one piece. So things are still going and we kept most of our projects going. So we’re doing all right.

KARL

And I want to get to your projects in a minute. But speaking of Covid, that is the last time we spoke. It was back in 2020. We were talking about, I think the topic of that plus talk then was sort of HIV and aging. And in the process of that conversation we talked about how Covid has sort of, you know, could have activated PTSD in people and live long-term survivors of HIV now that we’re a few years on, what have we learned from this whole Covid experience and is there anything we should be aware of re long-term, COVID and HIV that affects those of us living with HIV?

DR. BLICK

Yeah, great questions Karl. You know, unfortunately we lost a lot of our older HIV positive patients to covid, especially before we had the treatments available that we have today. So, so we know that they really are highly vulnerable to infections just like this. And we know now from all the data, from all the years of people getting covid that HIV positive people do have a worse outcome. Once again, they do have to be older, they have to have the risk factors, but they do worse when it comes to covid than the average population. So we, we definitely learned that and, and, and that PTSD issue just keeps coming back to play. ’cause whether you have the PTSD issue from life or from becoming HIV positive, then we have all this social isolation that we had really on and off the several years that really, really furthered PTSD, you know, in this community. Our therapist has never been so busy dealing with people’s PTSD, their depression and anxiety as a result of having been through this isolation and through another death and dying experience like the COVID Pandemic.

KARL

Yeah. And we could do a whole separate plus talk on HIV and isolation, not just for long-term survivors, but even newly diagnosed people. That’s a, that’s a whole different topic. We’ll get you back for that one. But I wanna just touch a little bit on what are we seeing as far as long-term covid and how that can affect us if we’re living with HIV and as someone with HIV who had covid two years ago, what should I be thinking about when it comes to this?

DR. BLICK

So the first thing you should be thinking about, and this is a big problem right now, you know, we have treatment that is very, very effective for covid. Okay? So this doesn’t apply just for HIV positive people. This applies for you and me, Karl. If you get covid, call your doctor immediately. Paxlovid is available. I’m not here to sell it, but it is very, very effective not only in treating covid for reducing symptoms, getting you back to work quicker, but it definitely reduces the long covid possibility. And we really, really forget that. We think this is just a mild flu and we’re gonna get through it. But there are long-term ramifications of having covid. So, so I don’t know why people are not accessing paxlovid, but they need to do that also. They need to get back to testing. ’cause you can’t access PAXLOVID unless you get tested. And, and with respiratory infections going crazy now, especially in the winter with respiratory syncytial virus as well as influenza and covid, they need to get tested for covid and get on treatment as soon as possible.

KARL

Especially if you’re living with HIV,

DR. BLICK

Especially if you’re living with HIV.

KARL

We’ve talked about stigma in the last time we chatted as well. And I would just want to pivot a bit to that because, you know, stigma is still such a huge problem. The last time you and I spoke you, you know, you, you said you worry about those teenagers and 20 year olds who think HIV is no big deal. But there’s a lot of us that face the stigma that prevents us from getting tested or from walking into to facilities like your own over the course of the year. You know, what, what have you guys done in your, in your facility to make sure that people feel welcome and at ease and comfortable and not worried about, oh my God, the nurse is gonna judge me. The receptionist is gonna look funny at me. ’cause that’s key, isn’t it? Those are important steps.

DR. BLICK

Yeah. And Karl, you, this even applies to people going on prep by the way. There’s a huge amount of stigma, stigma for those that really want to go on pre-exposure prophylaxis. But for we as an exor as an organization, you, you know, I don’t need to tell you this, but you know, we’re a nonprofit health advocacy organization and, and we dedicate all of our, our services to the needs not only of the L-G-B-T-Q community, but also the HIV positive community through our prevention programs, our education, advocacy and treatment. But the key number one is that welcoming people to a warm, safe environment to be able to do that. So beyond what we’re doing here in the office, we’re talking about our new campaigns now of stigma warriors, where we want people to come out and talk about their experiences, either being HIV positive or having a family member or a loved one that’s HIV positive and what drew you to fighting for them and helping to fight that stigmaand discrimination that we’re talking about. And this has to do everything with, with what we’re doing now with Elton John AIDS Foundation and, and, and becoming a presenting sponsor of the Academy Awards viewing party that we, we, we all understand the tremendous need to, to have a night like this, it’s important to raise that money. So it was an easy decision to be able to do that. But we hope by reigniting the conversation around hiv aids and prepand, and talking about all these things and, and reaching vulnerable people that are most in the need of support, helping them to provide access to HIVprevention and treatment services. This is the way to fight stigma. I think we mentioned in the past it’s education, education, education, education. And Carl, if we have people like you coming out and stating what you’ve done and why you’re so impacted by, you know, HIV and and people around you and everything like that and talking about that, we get that word out and then people can have conversations around your conversation why you are a stigma warrior or why hopefully Elton John becomes a stigma warrior. And once we get people con talking about that, that’s how we get them into treatment and that’s how we get them into prevention.

KARL

And I for one, am happy to be one of your stigmawarriors. So, and honored to be one of your stigmawarriors, as is our Raif Derrazi talking about healthcare advocates. You guys are not just there on the ground here in the United States. You have really branched out internationally too. Tell me a little bit about what you guys did in 2015 and what’s going on in Zimbabwe and why that and why that matters to the person living with HIV here in the United States.

DR. BLICK

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you know, stigma is a global thing, especially when it comes to hiv aids and you can only imagine what it’s like to be stigmatized in the country like Zimbabwe, which I love Zimbabwe by the way, but homosexuality is illegal. So, so working with the LGBT community in Zimbabwe is quite a, quite a chore and it’s sort of done underground, but we are very successfully working with them to not only help them combat the stigma of being part of the LGBT community, but also being HIV positive. You think stigma, you know, because HIV positivity is so prevalent in Zim Zimbabwe, there wouldn’t be stigma, but the stigma is amazing mostly because of religious purposes and everything like that. So, so you mentioned 2015, that was the year we opened up our state-of-the-art, you know, hiv aids and General Medicine clinic in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. But I’ve actually been trying to get to this work going back to the year 2000 with my first nonprofit. I actually stepped foot and began the work in Zimbabwe in 2010. So we’ve been now almost 14 years working there and I’m proud to say partnering with the Minister of Health and Childcare of the government of Zimbabwe, which is very, very easy to do. We’ve now gotten antiretroviral therapy out to over 10,000 people in Western Zimbabwe. And our next step is really promoting prep and getting people to start doing pre-exposure prophylaxis out there.

KARL

Amazing work. And there, there is always so much to be done. And so time Dr. Gary Blick, I wish we had more time on plus talk because there are literally so many amazing things you guys do there. Here you personally to help us all living with HIV. But that’s all we got time for today, so I really appreciate your time. My thank you, bro. My pleasure. My pleasure. That’s gonna do it for this episode of Plus Talk. If you want more information about us or about Healthcare Advocates International, check out our website plus life media.com. All the information is there and you can follow us across social media. We are at Plus Life Media as a proud stigma warrior. I’m saying have a good day, be nice to one another. We’ll see you soon.