A REVIEW STUDY ON TUBERCULOSIS AND COVID-19 CO-INFECTION
Auwalu Ibrahim, Ajoke Akinola, Jamilu Ibrahim Shinkafi Jagaba
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH · 2022-03
Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB) and COVID-19 are highly infectious pathogens that primarily affect the lungs. The symptoms of both diseases are similar such as cough, fever, and dyspnea (difculty in breathing). Although the incubation period of TB is longer and the onset of the disease is moderate in collation with COVID-19, Health services, including national programs to battle TB. Active engagement in ensuring an effective and rapid response to COVID-19 is required while ensuring that TB services are maintained. WHO universal TB Program, WHO territorial and national ofces developed an information note to support health authorities. Precise diagnostic tests are required for both TB and COVID-19. WHO and international partners endorsed the establishment of TB laboratory networks for COVID 19 diagnosis and surveillance. TB program staff, with their experience and capacity, including an ongoing case nding coupled with contact tracing, are well placed to spread understanding, skills, as well as provision of technical and logistical support. After a TB patient coughs, sneezes, shouts, or sings, tubercle bacilli residue hangs in the air, the droplet nuclei rest for several hours, and people who inhale them can get infected. COVID-19 transmission has primarily been attributed to the direct breathing of droplets expelled by someone with COVID-19. Tuberculosis (TB) causes more deaths than any other infectious disease globally, and Africa has one of the highest TB infection rates globally, especially in Namibia. In 2018, an estimated 13,000 people in Namibia fell ill with TB, and more than 5,000 were not diagnosed. Given that, there is a need to raise more awareness and adequate preventive majors that are effectively curving the menace of Tuberculosis.
MeSH terms
- Tuberculosis
- Medicine
- Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
- Contact tracing
- Airborne transmission
- Infectious disease (medical specialty)
- Battle
- Pandemic
- Transmission (telecommunications)
- Environmental health
- Disease
- Public health
- Intensive care medicine
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)