After the devastating second Covid wave during which 288 Covid patients were co-infected with tuberculosis (TB) because of compromised lungs, double infections have again started in the third Covid wave despite talk of reduced lung involvement with Omicron.
In less than two months (in December last and January), after the third wave started, the health department found 8,885 TB patients out of whom eleven tested positive for Covid-19 too. The Health Ministry has added TB as one of the high-risk criteria to the clinical management protocol of Covid issued on January 14.
The Centre has asked the states to subject the Covid patients having coughs that persist for two to three weeks to TB investigation. The TB wing of the state health department said a circular will be sent to all districts to check for double infections.
Dr Ramesh Reddy, Joint Director, TB, Department of Health and Family Welfare, said, “We have already told district officials over the phone to test those with coughs that persists for two to three weeks. Official communication will be sent today (Thursday). We consider such cases as ‘presumptive TB’ cases and subject them to sputum tests or nucleic acid tests.”
As per the health department’s data, in a population of 7,16,41,821, as many as 69,876 people were presumed to have TB in December 2021. Out of whom 5,667 were diagnosed with the disease and 5,547 of them were put on medical treatment.
“In December, out of 5,967 TB cases, seven were Covid positive. Till January 20, as many as 2,918 TB cases were diagnosed and four of them tested Covid positive. Presumptive cases of January (whole month) will be available in the first week of February,” Reddy said.
Patients suffering from both infections in December were found one each in Chikkaballapur, Ballari, Bagalkot, Gadag, and Uttara Kannada. Koppal had two patients with dual infections. In January, one patient each with Covid and TB were found in Dharwad, Koppal, Bengaluru, and Tumakuru.
“In the second wave, Covid infection used to adversely affect the lungs. Also, there was heavy steroid use. This makes people vulnerable to tuberculosis. When we screened eight lakh recovered Covid patients for TB, we found 288 TB patients. In this wave, lung involvement is less,”
he said.
CBNAAT test cartridges
The state which was grappling with a shortage of CBNAAT test cartridges for TB testing has finally got a consignment of 10,000 cartridges 20 days ago from the Central government. The state has also received a budget of Rs 60 crore for procurement of test cartridges which it has, in turn, disbursed to the districts.
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