Retrospective Cohort Study of Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Tuberculosis Notifications, Vietnam, 2020.

Tasnim Hasan,Viet Nhung Nguyen,Thu Anh Nguyen,Greg J Fox,Cuong D Pham,Hoa Binh Nguyen,Phuong T.M Nguyen,Nam Hoang,Guy B Marks,Justin Beardsley,Hien T.T Le

doi:10.3201/eid2803.211919

Abstract

We evaluated the effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic on diagnosis of and treatment for tuberculosis (TB) in Vietnam. We obtained quarterly notifications for TB and multidrug-resistant/rifampin-resistant (MDR/RR) TB from 2015–2020 and evaluated changes in monthly TB case notifications. We used an interrupted time series to assess the change in notifications and treatment outcomes. Overall, TB case notifications were 8% lower in 2020 than in 2019; MDR/RR TB notifications were 1% lower. TB case notifications decreased by 364 (95% CI −1,236 to 508) notifications per quarter and MDR/RR TB by 1 (95% CI −129 to 132) notification per quarter. The proportion of successful TB treatment outcomes decreased by 0.1% per quarter (95% CI −1.1% to 0.8%) in 2020 compared with previous years. Our study suggests that Vietnam was able to maintain its TB response in 2020, despite the pandemic.

Highlights

We evaluated the effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic on diagnosis of and treatment for tuberculosis (TB) in Vietnam
Decreased TB notifications led to fears that delays in case detection and reduced treatment completion resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic might lead to increased Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission and higher mortality rates [8]
Screening and treatment for TB are delivered by the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP) across all of Vietnam’s 63 provinces

Summary

Introduction

We evaluated the effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic on diagnosis of and treatment for tuberculosis (TB) in Vietnam. Decreased TB notifications led to fears that delays in case detection and reduced treatment completion resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic might lead to increased Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission and higher mortality rates [8]. Evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in reduced patient adherence to treatment [9], decreased access to medications [10,11], delayed access to services [10,12], and higher rates of loss to follow-up for patients with TB [10]. Some of this disruption has been attributed to diversion of resources and interruptions to drug supply and delivery resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic [13]. Effects of COVID-19 on TB Notifications, Vietnam evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on TB case notifications and treatment outcomes during the first year of the pandemic in Vietnam by comparing programmatic data from 2020 to data for the preceding 5 years

Methods

Results

Conclusion