Mumbai hospitals ordered to test Covid-19 recovered patients for TB

Several Covid-19 patients were also detected with TB after a separate test was conducted to check for the disease.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has instructed all hospitals in Mumbai to test Covid-19 recovered patients for TB since both diseases are believed to have similar symptoms.

As per a WHO note issued in May, both Covid-19 and TB are infectious disease that primarily attack the lungs. (PTI Photo/Representative)

In Mumbai, 135 TB patients were co-infected with Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 and 18 of these succumbed to the infection, mostly because of late diagnosis.

“Most of these co-infection cases have been identified in new TB patients. They approached hospitals considering it to be just Covid-19 infection. But when their CT scan report showed different forms of clouding in lungs, their sputum culture confirmed that they were also carrying the bacteria of TB,” said Dr Lalit Anande, medical superintendent, Sewri TB hospital. “Both these infections affect people with lower immunity,” he added.

As per the World Health Organization (WHO), TB and Covid-19 are both infectious diseases that primarily attack the lungs and have similar symptoms such as cough, fever and difficulty in breathing.

“As the pandemic advances, more people of all ages, including TB patients, will be exposed to Covid-19,” reads a note released by WHO in May this year.

In view of the developments, all private and public hospitals have been instructed to follow up on their Covid-19 recovered patients to check if they have developed any symptoms similar to TB, such as coughing, loss of appetite and fatigue among others.

“If any of them show such symptoms, we will run a sputum test to check if he/she has TB,” said Dr Pranita Tipre, deputy health officer, TB, BMC. “But so far, we have not diagnosed any recovered Covid-19 patients with TB,” she added.

Along with this, the BMC has also added TB as one of the diseases to look out for in the questionnaire being used for the door-to-door survey under ‘Your Family, Your Responsibility’ programme.

“During the survey, if anyone is found with TB-like symptoms, we will also run a diagnosis on it,” Dr Tipre added.

Social workers have welcomed the decision.