Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis notification and outcome in a district of South Gujarat

Context/background: The COVID-19 pandemic affected the health care services worldwide, with the target of END TB 2025; it was important to make sure that the TB notification and linkage services were not hampered. The current study aims to document the overall impact of COVID-19 on TB notification and treatment services.

Aims/objectives: To document the impact of COVID-19 on notification and comparison of their outcome between pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 era.

Methodology: Programmatic data of 9893 notified TB cases reported from Surat rural between 2019 and 2021 were collected from Nikshay portal through DTO Surat. Detailed comparison of pre- and COVID-19 era was performed using stratified analysis.

Results: There was a significant (P = 0.02) 29% decline in cases reported in 2020 as compared to the cases reported in the previous year. The impact of COVID-19 was also seen on mortality of the reported cases (18% increase). The overall proportion of treatment failure was increased (28%), whereas difference of 20% was seen in cases where treatment regimen was required to be changed.

Conclusions: Despite the overall impact of COVID-19 on TB services (2020), the health department has proactively countered and bounce back in 2021 with an overall increase in notification and treatment services.