THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 RESPONSE ON TUBERCULOSIS IN HIGH-BURDEN COUNTRIES: A MODELLING ANALYSIS
Report released 1 May, 2020
The Report was developed by Stop TB Partnership in collaboration with Imperial College, Avenir Health, Johns Hopkins University and USAID.
BACKGROUND AND AIM
The global response to COVID-19 has slowed the spread of the virus for now but is continuing to cause serious, short and longer term, disruptions to the programmes for other major diseases. For tuberculosis (TB) in particular, lockdowns on society are already showing signs of severely curtailing diagnosis and notifications (1) and potentially the availability of drugs (2).
A modelling study was therefore developed, to address the following questions:
- What is the potential impact of short-term lockdowns on TB incidence and mortality over the next 5 years, in high-burden countries?
- Following the lockdown, how can countries best accelerate the restoration of their TB control, to bring TB burden back under control?
Building on work for the 2019 Lancet Commission on TB, the modelling focuses on three high burden settings: India, the Republic of Kenya, and Ukraine. Estimates from these countries were also extrapolated to create global estimates, for the impact of COVID-19 on TB. Read the report.
Summary of key points by Sven Gudmund Hinderaker:
- Lasting impact on TB control
- Monthly ADDITIONAL deaths
- India 40685
- Kenya 1157
- Ukraine 137
- Global 2020-2025 EXTRA TB cases 6.3 million
- Global 2020-2025 EXTRA TB deaths 1.4 million
Also:
Info note from WHO 12.5.20: COVID-19: Considerations for tuberculosis (TB) care