impact of covid-19 pandemic on tuberculosis

Background: tuberculosis (tb) is a disease of the respiratory system that spreads when a patient coughs, sneezes, or spits. covid-19, another respiratory disease, created havoc in 2020 and 2021.  during this pandemic, the whole healthcare system was diverted into covid-19 patient care. it is important to determine what the status of tb was during the covid-19 period. this study was mainly undertaken to detect the occurrence of mycobacterium tuberculosis (m. tuberculosis) and rifampicin resistance before, during, and after covid-19 restrictions were fully released. methods: pulmonary and extrapulmonary samples from 1st january 2018 till 31st december 2022 were included in the present retrospective study. the period was divided as- 2018, 2019 - before covid-19 2020, 2021 -covid-19 period with restrictions (such as use of masks, social distancing, avoiding gatherings) 2022 -covid-19 period without restrictions. all samples received in tb section were subjected to cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test (cbnaat). the samples were processed according to the manufacturer’s guidelines.results: there was no significant difference in samples received per year from 2018 to 2022. the positivity of m. tuberculosis decreased from 22.52% in the pre-covid-19 period to 15.70% in the covid-19 period with restrictions and increased again in 2022 (16.80%). rifampicin resistance decreased from 10.40% to 6.89% in the covid-19 period with restrictions. a decrease in positivity was not observed in extrapulmonary tb cases. conclusion: in the present study, total samples for tb received over five years were relatively the same. restrictions imposed during the covid-19 period could decrease tb and rifampicin resistance. thus, imposing restrictions on tb-suspected and positive patients regularly can help prevent the spread of the disease.