Association between Tuberculosis & COVID-19 in the Context of Dhaka City

Tuberculosis & COVID-19 are those infectious diseases that share many similarities, from the mode of transmission to the outcome. Bangladesh is one of those TB high-burden countries. The study aims to discover and discover new things about COVID-19 as it is an emerging infectious disease. This cross-sectional study was carried out to evaluate the association between tuberculosis and COVID-19 in Dhaka Metropolitan City. We estimated the sample size through simple random sampling and used a close-ended questionnaire for data collection. Informed consent has taken from all the participants. Then the data analysis was done by using SPSS. We focused on some risk factors, their impact, and disease burden in terms of morbidity. The results showed a strong association between these two infectious killers. The study revealed that some risk factors, including older age, male gender, the onset of TB, comorbidities, vaccination status for COVID-19, and smoking, are highly associated with significant impact & increasing disease burden. Routine TB screening is suggested among suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Dhaka Metropolitan City due to the worse outcome of COVID-19 on TB patients and the confounding clinical features of these two diseases. TB is strongly associated with COVID-19 in terms of impact & disease burden. For addressing these major public health issues, we have a lot of scope to learn more on this topic.