The COVID-19 pandemic has forced most countries to impose stringent control measures. However, these measures are also impacting negatively on access to health care services, with many countries reporting a drop in TB notifications, seeing delayed treatment initiations, reduced treatment adherence and in general a significant weakening of TB services. Mathematical modelling can help to anticipate the effects that these disruptions could have on TB incidence and mortality over the next few years, and aid in strategic planning to counteract these effects.
TB MAC has compiled resources detailing the impact and mitigation of COVID-19 on TB, in a series of guidance, tools, reports and data. If you know of any modelling or data on the impact of COVID-19 on TB not included here, please do let us know at tb-mac@lshtm.ac.uk.
A broader compendium of ongoing and published TB/COVID-19 studies is also available from the WHO Global TB Programme here.
GUIDANCE EXTENTION:
Existing WHO/TB MAC country-level TB modelling guidance outlines principles and good practices to follow to ensure the quality and relevance of mathematical modelling used to inform policy-making. We have developed a stand-alone extension to that guidance, identifying additional good practices to be considered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
TOOLS:
WHO SEARO, Imperial College London, the Indian Council of Medical Research and Avenir Health, supported by TB MAC, have developed a user-friendly web-based tool to simulate the impact of this change in the 11 countries of the WHO South-East Asian Region. The user can enter inputs for the intensity and duration of disruptions, where outputs show projected impacts on TB notifications, new cases and TB-related deaths for the period 2020-2025. Charts and summary tables allow the user to prepare communications and other materials, to help mobilize for the urgent restoration of TB programmes. More information and the tool can be found here.
RELEVANT MODELLING:
A collection of reports modelling different aspects of the impact of COVID-19 on TB. Scroll right for additional details.
AVAILABLE DATA:
In this paper we summarise the available data on the impact of COVID-19-related disruptions on TB health service delivery, M.tb transmission, vulnerability to TB and TB resources.
