With the world in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is easy to lose sight of other slow-spreading pandemics that still afflict us, like tuberculosis (TB) for example.
World TB Day is commemorated on 24 March, in memory of Dr Robert Koch’s discovery of the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1882.
For World TB Day this year, Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, Programme Leader (Infectious Diseases), contributed a commentary on how COVID-19 could affect TB control measures.
The current COVID-19 outbreak threatens to disrupt TB public health and treatment programmes all over the world, especially since it is expected to last beyond 2020, perhaps becoming a more deadly endemic seasonal respiratory virus compared to other endemic viruses such as influenza.
He also outlined how certain measures could be adapted to expand and better TB control, especially “in a future where Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) continues to spread”.
“Efforts to eliminate TB remain important in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic,” highlighted Assoc Prof Hsu, “However, it is important to rethink TB control for the future given that Sars-CoV-2 has the potential to become a seasonal respiratory virus that will change healthcare service delivery even if an effective vaccine were to be developed.”
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(Header photo by Magali Druscovich/REUTERS)