Reine Lantin

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Tuberculosis in the Philippines in a Health Care Provision and Population-Centric Context

Started Apr. 27, 2023

Abstract or project description

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences on the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis (TB). This project focuses on these issues in the context of the Philippines, which has the world’s fourth-largest incidence of TB. In the early stages of the pandemic, notifications of new TB cases in the Philippines drastically decreased, resulting in uncertainty over the true burden of new cases. The Philippines was one of the first nations to create a TB adaptation plan to cope with the challenges of the pandemic. Treatment adaptations included shifting to home-based care and increasing the amount of medicine prescribed between appointments to last weeks rather than days. Despite the challenges the pandemic posed, these treatment adaptations have led to improvements in the continuity of TB care in the Philippines in comparison to before the pandemic. Co-infection with COVID-19 and TB was a major public health concern given the increased risk of complications amid hospital resource constraints. In summary, this project will review and discuss how lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines have shaped the current TB care continuum from diagnosis to treatment.