The Ministry of Health has said that Covid-19 can make a person more susceptible to developing active tuberculosis (TB).
The Ministry of Health said TB is an opportunistic infection like black fungus. (Photo: Reuters / for representation)
Covid-19 infection can make a person more prone to developing active tuberculosis (TB), the Ministry of Health said Saturday, adding that TB is an opportunistic infection like black fungus.
The Department of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has recommended screening for tuberculosis (TB) for all Covid-19 positive patients and Covid-19 screening for all diagnosed TB patients. It does so amid media reports of a sudden surge in TB cases in patients recently infected with the coronavirus.
However, the MoHFW stated that there was insufficient evidence that there was an increase in TB cases due to Covid-19.
The Department of Health made it clear that as early as August 2020, states and union territories were asked to converge in efforts to better monitor and track TB and Covid-19 cases.
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Apart from that, the Ministry of Health has also issued several pieces of advice and guidelines to reinforce the need for bidirectional screening for TB-Covid and TB-ILI / SARI.
The Ministry of Health said in a statement that case reports for TB in 2020 were down about 25 percent due to the impact of Covid-19-related restrictions. The statement added that special efforts are being made to mitigate these effects through increased case-finding in OPD settings, as well as active case-finding campaigns in the community of all states.
The dual morbidity of TB and Covid-19 can be further highlighted by the fact that both diseases are known to be contagious, affecting primarily the lungs and presenting similar symptoms such as cough, fever and difficulty breathing, although TB has a longer incubation period and a slower onset of the disease Illness, said the Ministry of Health.
“In addition, TB bacilli can be present in humans in a dormant state and have the potential to reproduce if the individual’s immunity is compromised for any reason. The same is true in post-Covid scenarios, when a person may develop decreased immunity due to the virus itself or due to treatment, especially immunosuppressants such as steroids, ”the statement said.
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