JOIN USCOVID-19 set to cause infection, death of lakhs of TB patients in India
For every month of lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, India may witness an additional 71,000 tuberculosis (TB) deaths and more than 232,000 TB cases over the next five years, says a new study.
The numbers will slightly drop to 40,685 deaths and 145,000 cases in the months of restoration, notes the study released by the Stop TB Partnership, a UN agency, on Tuesday.
Released on Tuesday, the study flags the unintended yet drastic consequences of lockdowns on tuberculosis services with limitations on diagnosis, treatment and prevention services. The outcome would be an increase in the annual number of TB cases and deaths over the next five years as at least five years of progress on TB response will be wiped out due to the pandemic.
India has the world’s worst TB burden with nearly 220,000 deaths every year. The disease that costs the national economy more than $1 billion between 2006 and 2014, is India’s biggest public health challenge.
The study takes into account two scenarios – (1) two months of lockdown followed by two months of recovery and (2) three months of lockdown and 10 months recovery. In both situations, India stands to lose the maximum.
In the first scenario, there would be more than five lakh excess cases and over 1.5 lakh more TB deaths. For the second scenario, the numbers rise to nearly 18 lakh additional cases and more than five lakh deaths between 2020 and 2025. The projections are made for the next five years.
The modelling takes into account factors like how the restrictions on the movement led to suspected TB patients’ access to the healthcare services and how reduced laboratory capacity and staff strength adversely impacts the tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment.
The modelling focuses on three high-burden countries - India, Kenya and Ukraine. But the estimates were extrapolated to create global estimates, for the impact of COVID-19 on TB because each of these countries represents a global trend. The India model, for instance, is a test case for countries with high TB burden and private sector involvement.
Globally 6.3 million more people will become ill with TB and 1.4 million will die from TB due to the lockdown, bulk of which will take place in India.
Each month taken to return to normal, TB services would incur, in India, an additional 40,685 deaths between 2020 and 2025, says the study.
As such, global TB incidence and deaths in 2021 would increase to levels last seen in between 2013 and 2016, respectively – implying a setback of at least five to seven years in the fight against TB, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new study was commissioned by the Stop TB Partnership in collaboration with the Imperial College, Avenir Health and Johns Hopkins University, and was supported by USAID. The modelling was constructed on assumptions drawn from a rapid assessment done by The Stop TB Partnership on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related measures on the TB response in 20 high-burden TB countries—representing 54% of the global TB burden.