Impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in the Municipal Institute for Lung Diseases and TB Belgrade

Backgorund: TB remains the 9th leading cause of death worldwide with10 million infected/year. About two million sufferers die. Methods and Objectives: Aim of this retrospective study was to determine the impact of Covid infection on TB diagnosed and treated patients in Municipal Institute for Lung Diseases and TB in Belgrade when functioned as Covid centre (2020.-2022.). It was analysed protocol of patients treated for TB from 2018 to 2022. Results: 72 were treated for pulmonary TB in 2020, 84 in 2021, and 107 in 2022, significantly less compared to 150 in 2018 and 135 in 2019. In 2020. 8 patients were treated for extrapulmonary TB, 11 in 2021. and 15 in 2022., significantly less compared to 30 patients in 2018., and 29 in 2019. In the period before the pandemic, 31 patients were treated for atypical mycobacteria, in the contrast to the pandemic, only 10 patients. Out of 263 treated during the pandemic 20 (7.6%) had severe form of TB (cavernous), in contrast to the period before the pandemic, out of 285 treatments, 2 of them (0.7%) had cavernous tuberculosis. Conclusion: Our results are in accordance with the official data of the Institute for Public Health of Serbia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, even the institution was the biggest Covid centre in Serbia, special attention is paid to TB pts. Neglecting continued efforts to TB control at any time in the future may be dangerous even in countries with low burden of this disease, due to the presence of resistant, difficult to treat forms.