Are COVID Patients More Vulnerable to Tuberculosis? By Dr. Ankit Singhal

• October 06, 2021
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Are COVID Patients More Vulnerable to Tuberculosis?

By Dr. Ankit Singhal

Most of the symptoms of Covid-19 in hospitalized patients are resolved within a year, however, around one-half still experience at least one persistent symptom, revealed by a study published in the Lancet. Around one in three patients still experiences a breathing issue which may lead to tuberculosis due to weak lungs. The reason for the increased likelihood of tuberculosis in post-covid patients can be explained by factors like altered immunity, lung inflammation, and stress due to COVID, use of steroids for COVID Treatment, and worsening of blood sugar control.

A delay in diagnosis of TB also has been reported since symptoms of tuberculosis is similar to symptom of Post Covid / long Covid. So If you are professional. It is still uncertain about the rising of TB in post-COVID patients. While there is no conclusive evidence yet to establish that COVID-19 can directly trigger an increase in tuberculosis, TB cases have indeed been going up in most of the states, especially in the post-COVID phase. However, emerging evidence from various studies suggests that COVID and TB share dysregulation of immune responses, and the possibility of COVID -19 activating dormat/latent TB infection or triggering re-infections in those recovering from COVID is indeed real.

Somehow people have avoided the regular medical checkups including TB detection during pandemics. This is a disease that aggravates slowly. So it is always advisale to keep taking your TB treatment as prescribed. There is no clear evidence that active TB diseases put you at increased risk of COVID-19 infection, but we do know that people have worse health and treatment outcomes if their TB treatment is stopped or interrupted.