Morning Medical Update Thursday 12-1-22

Media Resources

Jill Chadwick

News Director

Office: (913) 588-5013

Cell: (913) 223-3974

Email

jchadwick@kumc.edu

   The University of Kansas Health System is treating a total of 39 COVID patients today, down from 43 yesterday. Other significant numbers:

  • 25 with the active virus today, 27 yesterday
  • 3 in ICU, 5 yesterday
  • 1 on a ventilator, 1 yesterday
  • 14 hospitalized, but out of acute infection phase, 16 yesterday

Key points from today’s guests:

Todd Gregory-Gibbs, HIV patient and AIDS activist

  • Has lived with HIV for 30 years now and advances in medicine have greatly improved his quality of life.
  • Still has chronic pain and chronic fatigue issues, but he didn't expect to see the year 2000 and it’s 2022 and he’s doing great.
  • The social stigma around HIV has lessened and, although it still exists in a lot of ways, people are less ostracized and alienated the way they were before.

Dr. Wissam El Atrouni, infectious diseases, The University of Kansas Health System

  • There have been improvements in access to HIV care worldwide over the last decade now.
  • 75% of adults with diagnosis of HIV are on medication, and that's 10 times better than just 10 years ago.
  • Patients are covered by all kinds of insurance available and even people without insurance are covered by the Ryan White program.
  • So there's no reason a person now with HIV in the U.S. or worldwide to not have access to these medications.

Dr. Matt Shoemaker, infectious diseases, The University of Kansas Health System

  • As everybody was isolating and quarantining due to COVID, there has been lost access to health care and the number of HIV tests has the significantly declined.
  • If somebody feels that they're at risk for HIV, they should talk to their healthcare provider about getting on PrEP and keep testing and keep testing.
  • As far as other diseases to be concerned about, there's been a measles outbreak in in New York and in unvaccinated populations.
  • We know that even before COVID there was vaccine hesitancy and that seems to continue.
  • We worry about the emergence of these childhood diseases that most of us have never seen in our lifetime. So that's a big concern.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, director of infection control and prevention, The University of Kansas Health System

  • The most effective prevention for influenza is vaccination.
  • There's a Tamiflu shortage worldwide, so treatment for influenza is going to be impacted by that.
  • We strongly encourage everybody to get their influenza vaccinations as well as their COVID boosters.
  • Make sure measles, mumps, rubella and other childhood illness vaccines are up to date.

Friday Dec. 2 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. Meet a patient who has experienced setback after setback in his quest to find a liver donor. Doctors will explain how his story is directly related to changes in liver allocation.

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