Gauging the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis services: a global study

• Published in: The European respiratory journal Vol. 58; no. 5; p. 2101786
• Main Authors: Migliori, Giovanni Battista, Thong, Pei Min, Alffenaar, Jan-Willem, Denholm, Justin, Tadolini, Marina, Alyaquobi, Fatma, Blanc, François-Xavier, Buonsenso, Danilo, Cho, Jin-Gun, Codecasa, Luigi Ruffo, Danila, Edvardas, Duarte, Raquel, García-García, José-María, Gualano, Gina, Rendon, Adrian, Silva, Denise Rossato, Souleymane, Mahamadou Bassirou, Tham, Sai Meng, Thomas, Tania A., Tiberi, Simon, Udwadia, Zarir F., Goletti, Delia, Centis, Rosella, D'Ambrosio, Lia, Sotgiu, Giovanni, Ong, Catherine W.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Respiratory Society 01.11.2021
• Subjects: Agora
• ISSN: 0903-1936; 1399-3003
• DOI: 10.1183/13993003.01786-2021

The effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on tuberculosis (TB) disease and TB services emerged in the beginning of 2020 [1, 2]. Epidemiological and clinical studies, including mortality rates of the first cohort of patients with COVID-19 and TB co-infection were described [3, 4]. Several reports from individual countries suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected TB services [5–9], including validation by modelling studies [10]. The Global Tuberculosis Network (GTN) reported that the COVID-19 pandemic affected TB services in 33 TB centres from 16 countries in the first 4 months of 2020 [11]. An increased use of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic was observed in some TB centres [11]. The major limitations of that study were the short period of observation (January to April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019) and the limited number of variables analysed [11–14]. This global study of 43 TB centres from 19 countries demonstrates the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on TB services. Newly diagnosed TB disease, drug-resistant TB, TB deaths, outpatient clinic attendances and newly diagnosed TB infection were reduced. https://bit.ly/3sdHbfk