Tuberculosis in the era of COVID-19 in India

Abstract

Background and aims Tuberculosis (TB) still continues to be endemic in various regions of the world, including in India and needs surveillance, clinical assessment, testing, contact tracing, confirmation of diagnosis with supervised or in-supervised treatment regimens for an effective eradication. We assess the challenges due to COVID- 19 pandemic on management of Tuberculosis and current strategies adopted to mitigate them. Methods We carried out a comprehensive review of the literature using suitable keywords such as ‘COVID-19’, ‘Pandemics’, ‘Tuberculosis’ and ‘India’ on the search engines of PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar and Research Gate in the month of May 2020 during the current COVID-19 pandemic to assess the impact of COVID-19 on management of Tuberculosis. Results We found considerable disruption in Tuberculosis service provisions both in the primary care and hospital settings. Lockdown, social distancing, isolation strategies and public health guidelines to prevent viral transmission impacted the delivery of all aspects of Tuberculosis care. Conclusions COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact in the delivery of various tuberculosis prevention, surveillance, and treatment programmes. Lockdown and public health guidelines have resulted in tough challenges in traditional management of tuberculosis and has required reconfiguration of methods to support patients including wider use of remote consultations.

Mucormycosis coinfection associated with global COVID-19: a case series from India

“…It has presented to us with a global health crisis. 1 The lack of evidence in literature has put clinicians into a dilemma as patients come with varied presentations. COVID-19 patients especially the severely ill and immunocompromised have a higher probability of suffering from invasive mycoses.…”

Coinfection of SARS-CoV-2 and MTB: how not to miss the wood for the trees

“…These include transfer of TB services for COVID-19 use, 4 significant reduction in TB notification rates with the surge of COVID-19 5 and considerable disruption in TB services both in primary care settings in the field as well as hospital settings. 6 The overwhelming nature of the pandemic has rendered many hospitals busy in handling on July 18, 2021 by guest. Protected by copyright.…”

COVID-19 coinfection in patients with active tuberculosis: First case-report in Iran

“…Its symptoms include respiratory problems and lung involvement which are similar to symptoms of the COVID-19 infection therefore it's a big concern during the pandemic. It is estimated that 1.7 billion people are infected by tuberculosis worldwide and according to WHO, 10 million people got infected by tuberculosis in 2019 thus tuberculosis infection is among the 10 leading causes of mortality in the world 10 . Tuberculosis patients are at high risk for COVID-19 infection since their symptoms are diagnosed and reported later.…”