Impact of the covid-19 pandemic on pulmonary tuberculosis notification in a city in Agreste pernambucano

Abstract

How the covid-19 pandemic had an impact on tuberculosis testing and screening and the variation in the number of cases before and during the pandemic. This is an observational, descriptive, crosssectional and retrospective study, with data provided by the Municipal Health Department of Caruaru, using records of patients whose test results were positive for tuberculosis between the years 2018 and 2022, excluding results incomplete or inconclusive. During the years previously analyzed, the pandemic saw a stable number of cases in 2018 and 2019, however, during 2020 there was a drop in cases registered that year, which could be associated with the beginning of the pandemic and the lockdown, along with a sudden drop in relation to the previous years. previous years, with the following years there was a considerable increase in cases in 2021 and 2022, they also reflect the impact of the pandemic by having a greater number of notifications compared to the years before the pandemic, in addition, it was also found a prevalence of tuberculosis cases in men, of mixed race, with the pulmonary form being the most detected. Tuberculosis, which was already considered a neglected disease, during the pandemic suffered from the impacts and great focus given to covid-19, mainly because both are diseases that affect the respiratory system, thus making correct screening and reliable values of the disease difficult.