Tuberculosis under the Influence of COVID-19 Lockdowns: Lessons from Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This study investigates the short-term effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown on tracing and detection of tuberculosis (TB) patients in Tehran, Iran. Results of this study have demonstrated that due to the significant decrease in the identification of patients with suspected TB during the COVID-19 outbreak in Tehran, it is imperative that patients with suspected TB be tracked and diagnosed more quickly to make up for some of the decline in TB diagnosis in recent months and to recover lost cases.