When all eyes were on covid, TB crept up

Health Department to conduct survey after detecting tuberculosis in those recovered from covid

Though the State Government recently announced that there was a dip in tuberculosis cases this year, post unlock, doctors have been witnessing a rise. As many covid-recovered people are being diagnosed with TB, the health department has decided to start a door-to-door survey to understand the extent of the disease.

Dr Ramesh Chandra Reddy, state joint director of TB, told Mirror detection of TB cases had gone down as patients stayed away from hospitals during the peak of covid, especially in May. “We are detecting TB patients through CT scans that were largely done to check for covid. After we saw that many who recovered from covid have TB, we decided to do a door-to-door survey to check for the four common symptoms from August 16. The TB team and district health and TB officers are getting ready to do an active case survey by visiting each house with covid patients.” He said that there are 382 CT scan centres in the state in which 758 presumptive TB patients were identified;132 were clinically diagnosed and 90 microbiologically confirmed. “A total of 222 TB patients were detected, which is 29 per cent of the presumptives,” he said.

Dr Nagaraj C, director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases, said that as all hospitals were focusing on covid, TB was left out. “We treat severe cases of TB and such patients referred by other hospitals are still coming for treatment. All the hospitals have now been asked to screen and start treating TB patients,” he said.
Dr. Hirenappa Udnur, Consultant- Pulmonologist, Columbia Asia Hospital said that TB is endemic in our country. He said that during lockdown, people did not consult the doctor though they had developed symptoms. “In many cases, people also confused the symptoms of TB with covid. With the symptoms persisting, many are now visiting the hospitals,” he said.

He added that they have observed that few patients wait till the symptoms get severe before consulting a doctor.



Rise in covid recovery
Many patients who recovered from covid show structural lung diseases like post-covid fibrosis. These patients are more prone to developing infections, said Dr. P Jagadeesh Kumar, Consultant Pulmonologist, Apollo Hospitals. “Patients who require hospitalisation or were in ICU due to covid received steroids. When administered for a long time, steroids can affect immunity. Patients become more susceptible to these tubercular, bacterial and fungal infections. We have seen three out of 10 patients that have come for a review check-up,” he said.

Dr. Srikanta J T, Consultant Paediatric Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine, Aster CMI Hospital, said that they are seeing at least one TB case per week in the last few months. “As most resources were directed towards fighting the pandemic, there was a wide gap in the already strained TB surveillance programme. During the lockdown, people could not access hospitals and as most were designated covid hospitals, most patients with other aliments were neither accepted nor treated.

Malnutrition or undernutrition pre and during covid also plays a significant role,” he said.