Tuberculosis and COVID-19 Screening at Health Facilities: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Health Care Workers in Nigeria during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) incidence continues to rise in many parts of the world with increasing fatality. At the same time, tuberculosis (TB) has been identified as the leading cause of death amongst all infectious diseases globally. Routine screening of clients visiting health facilities can help to prevent the spread of these diseases. Aim: To assess the relationship between the practice of facility-based routine tuberculosis screening and routine screening for COVID-19. Methodology: Using a Snowball technique, a cross-sectional online survey was carried out during the national lockdown from 5 July to 5 August 2020. The target population for this survey was health care workers from the different health facilities across Nigeria. An online semi-structured questionnaire was used to interview healthcare workers to identify their knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) towards COVID-19 and the practice of routine TB screening. Descriptive analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Pearson’s Chi-square test was used for statistical comparative analysis. Results: This shows that 53.9% of healthcare workers did not practice routine TB screening while 46.9% did not practice routine COVID-19 screening. Respondents who practiced routine TB screening were found to be more likely to practice routine COVID-19 screening (p 0.001). Healthcare workers in primary healthcare centers were more likely to carry out routine screening for both diseases (p 0.001) and among these, Community Healthcare Workers were more likely to carry out routine screening for both diseases than other cadres (p 0.001). Conclusion/Recommendation: Routine screening for infectious diseases is still not institutionalized in the Nigerian health system, making the control of these diseases difficult. Continued sensitization on the need for routine screening for infectious diseases like TB and COVID-19 should be done for healthcare workers at the different levels in the health care system.