Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in COVID-19: Double trouble

Vikas Marwah; Deepu K Peter; Tentu Ajai Kumar; Gaurav Bhati; Arvind Kumar

doi:10.1016/j.mjafi.2021.05.002

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in COVID-19: Double trouble

Med J Armed Forces India. 2021 Jul;77(Suppl 2):S479-S482. doi: 10.1016/j.mjafi.2021.05.002. Epub 2021 Jul 26.

Authors

Vikas Marwah¹, Deepu K Peter², Tentu Ajai Kumar³, Gaurav Bhati², Arvind Kumar⁴

Affiliations

¹ Professor & Head (Pulmonary Medicine), Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, Army Institute of Cardiothoracic Sciences (AICTS), Pune, India.
² Graded Specialist (Pulmonary Medicine), Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, Army Institute of Cardiothoracic Sciences (AICTS), Pune, India.
³ Associate Professor (Pulmonary Medicine), Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, Army Institute of Cardiothoracic Sciences (AICTS), Pune, India.
⁴ Assistant Professor (Pulmonary Medicine), Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, Army Institute of Cardiothoracic Sciences (AICTS), Pune, India.

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives of many especially those living with chronic diseases. India has the highest burden of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) in the world. The pandemic and the lockdown created multiple bottlenecks in the provision of healthcare as well as the distribution of medications. The stigma of tuberculosis leads to mental trauma, suffering, delay in diagnosis, and non-compliance to therapy. Lockdown imposed due to COVID-19, aggravated the fears of each patient and had made medical care access difficult. Here we describe a patient with MDR TB and chronic hepatitis B and how the course of the disease and its management was affected by COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID with MDR TB; MDR TB with COVID-19; SARS COV 2 TB coinfection; TB in COVID.

Publication types

Case Reports