Introduction: The aim of this study is to review how did the first three COVID-19 waves affected the diagnostic of tuberculosis and to describe the extra-pulmonary Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (TB) diagnosis.
Materials and methods: A retrospective observational study was done during the first three waves of pandemic to ascertain the impact on TB samples and to recover the extra-pulmonary TB cases we included the first two years of COVID-19. All relevant data was recovered from hospital and Clinical Microbiology records.
Results: Prepandemic period showed an average of 44 samples per week for TB study; during the first three waves this number dropped to 23.1 per week. A reduction of 67.7% of pulmonary TB diagnosis was observed and an increase of 33.3% diagnosis of extra-pulmonary TB was noted when comparing pre-pandemic and pandemic period.
Discussion: The number of declared cases and samples for TB diagnosis dropped during the first three COVID-19 waves due to the overstretched Public Health System which could lead to a delay in diagnosis, treatment and to the spread of TB disease in the general population. Surveillance programs should be reinforced to avoid this.
Keywords: COVID-19; extra-pulmonary; pneumonia; respiratory samples; tuberculosis.
© 2022 Sociedad Española de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.