Impact of Lockdown on Tuberculosis Management during SARS-Cov-2 Pandemic : Urban & Rural Scenario of Surat

Abstract

Introduction: India has highest burden of tuberculosis cases both drug sensitive as well as drug resistance in the world. COVID-19 pandemic had affected infectious diseases like TB, HIV, Malaria in developing countries like India. Here, we aimed to study the impact of lockdown on diagnosis and management of tuberculosis in Surat, Gujarat, India due to SARS Cov 2. Method: Cross sectional survey of Tuberculosis patients regarding problems faced during lockdown involving all 18 Tb unit of SMC was done, 15 patients were randomly selected by simple random sampling of line list of patients of each unitand secondary data analysis, data was collected from District Tuberculosis centre for rural part and SMC for urban part. Results: In this study we compared data 5 months before and after lockdown i.e. November 2019 to March 2020 and April 2020 to August 2020 , comparison of diagnostic tests like sputum examination by staining, CBNAAT, and first line Line Probe Assay (LPA) which shows significant reduction in number of test. Also the number of cases of pulmonary as well as drug sensitive, drug resistance and no of referral cases too were significantly decreased during and after lockdown. However, treatment success rate and case fatality rate remain the same as five months before and after the lockdown. Conclusion: Comparison of diagnostic test of TB showed significant reduction in number of tests done during and after lockdown. It was also observed that no major issues were faced by patients from health care provider side of National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme.

Keywords

• cartridge- based nucleic acid amplification test (cbnaat)
• lockdown
• line probe assay (lpa)
• national tuberculosis elimination programme