Decrease in Tuberculosis Cases during COVID-19 Pandemic as Reflected by Outpatient Pharmacy Data, United States, 2020.
Emerg Infect Dis
; 28(4): 820-827, 2022 04.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1760183
ABSTRACT
We analyzed a pharmacy dataset to assess the 20% decline in tuberculosis (TB) cases reported to the US National Tuberculosis Surveillance System (NTSS) during the coronavirus disease pandemic in 2020 compared with the 2016-2019 average. We examined the correlation between TB medication dispensing data to TB case counts in NTSS and used a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model to predict expected 2020 counts. Trends in the TB medication data were correlated with trends in NTSS data during 2006-2019. There were fewer prescriptions and cases in 2020 than would be expected on the basis of previous trends. This decrease was particularly large during April-May 2020. These data are consistent with NTSS data, suggesting that underreporting is not occurring but not ruling out underdiagnosis or actual decline. Understanding the mechanisms behind the 2020 decline in reported TB cases will help TB programs better prepare for postpandemic cases.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pharmacy
/
Tuberculosis
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
Emerg Infect Dis
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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