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As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the world, there is anxiety among experts fighting TB that what this pandemic will do to the much older infectious killer tuberculosis, as a person with pulmonary TB is more vulnerable to coronavirus.
Dr Surya Kant Tripathi, head of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at King George’s Medical University, said that Uttar Pradesh had not suspended its fight against TB. Despite the lockdown and coronavirus threat, the DOT Centres were working and patients were being given a month’s medicine, he told ‘The Pioneer’ on Tuesday.
Earlier, the patients were called on daily basis and were asked to take medicine in front of the TB health worker.
“It is a fact that any person with compromised lung is vulnerable to coronavirus. People having TB need to take more precautions,” said Dr Tripathi, who is also head of UP Chapter Tuberculosis.
Dr Tripathi said that the TB was the leading killer and an estimated 4.35 lakh people died every year because of this disease. “So on an average, over 1,000 people die every day of TB,” he said.
“We have asked the TB health workers not to compromise and test any person for both TB and COVID. The primary symptom of both the diseases is same. In TB the cough is accompanied with sputum while in case of COVID-19, it is dry cough. Otherwise, both the patients have fever. In case of COVID-19, the infected person will develop pain in the body which he cannot conceal,” he said.
Manjusha Srivastava, a TB health worker is however a bit nervous about the spread of COVID-10.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is spreading its tentacles. We have so many untested TB patients. We, of course, have a lot of untested COVID-19 patients. Once the coronavirus cases start coming in large numbers TB will take a beating,” she said.