Impact of COVID-19 prevention and control on tuberculosis and scarlet fever in China’s Guizhou

Abstract

China has implemented a series of long-term measures to control the spread of COVID-19, however, the effects of these measures on other chronic and acute respiratory infectious diseases remain unclear. Tuberculosis (TB) and scarlet fever (SF) serve as representatives of chronic and acute respiratory infectious diseases, respectively. In China’s Guizhou province, an area with a high prevalence of TB and SF, approximately 40,000 TB cases and hundreds of SF cases are reported annually. To assess the impact of COVID-19 prevention and control on TB and SF in Guizhou, the exponential smoothing method was employed to establish a prediction model for analyzing the influence of COVID-19 prevention and control on the number of TB and SF cases. Additionally, spatial aggregation analysis was utilized to describe spatial changes in TB and SF before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. The parameters of the TB and SF prediction models are R2 = 0.856, BIC = 10.972 and R2 = 0.714, BIC = 5.325, respectively. TB and SF cases declined rapidly at the onset of COVID-19 prevention and control measures, with the number of SF cases decreasing for about 3–6 months and the number of TB cases remaining in decline for 7 months after the 11th month. The spatial aggregation of TB and SF did not change significantly before and after the COVID-19 outbreak but exhibited a marked decrease. These findings suggest that China’s COVID-19 prevention and control measures also reduced the prevalence of TB and SF in Guizhou. These measures may have a long-term positive impact on TB, but a short-term effect on SF. Areas with high TB prevalence may continue to experience a decline due to the implementation of COVID-19 preventive measures in the future.