ArticleTropical medicine and infectious disease2023
The Impact of COVID-19 on Tuberculosis Program Performance in the Kingdom of Lesotho.
Article in Tropical medicine and infectious disease, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of integrating paediatric tuberculosis services into child healthcare services on case detection in Africa: the INPUT stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial.BMJ global health · 2024Trial
- Primary health care response to tuberculosis treatment in Brazilian cities during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed-method study.Global health action · 2025Article
- Evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on viral load and CD4 monitoring for people living with HIV on ART in rural Lesotho.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Tuberculosis mortality and drug resistance among patients under TB treatment before and during COVID-19 in Burundi: a case-control study.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on tuberculosis care at a tertiary hospital: integrating lessons from COVID-19 learned.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis treatment outcomes in 49 high burden countries.BMC medicine · 2024Article
- Global, regional, and national age-specific progress towards the 2020 milestones of the WHO End TB Strategy: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2024Article
- The global impact of COVID-19 on tuberculosis: A thematic scoping review, 2020-2023.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAs tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne disease requiring multi-month therapy, systems of TB detection and care were profoundly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The worsening economic situation, including income, food, and housing insecurity, impacted the social conditions in which TB-already a leading killer in resource-limited settings-thrives. This study assesses the impact of COVID-19 on TB detection and treatment in Lesotho.
methodsWe used routine program data from 78 health facilities in Lesotho. We created time series models from July 2018 to March 2021 to quantify COVID-19-related disruptions to TB program indicators: outpatient visits; presumptive, diagnosed, treated, and HIV co-infected cases; and treatment outcomes including successful (cured and completed) and unsuccessful (death and treatment outcome unknown).
resultsWe observed a significant decline in cumulative outpatient visits (-37.4%, 95% prediction interval [PI]: -40.1%, -28.7%) and new TB cases diagnosed (-38.7%, 95%PI: -47.2%, -28.4%) during the pandemic, as well as TB-HIV co-infections (-67.0%, 95%PI: -72.6%, -60.0%). However, we observed no difference in treatment success (-2.1%, 95%PI: -17.0%, 15.8%).
conclusionsTB case detection in Lesotho fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, likely related to the uptake of overall health services. However, treatment success rates did not change, indicating a strong health system and the success of local strategies to maintain treatment programs.
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