Abstract
Policies widely adopted in response to the ongoing pandemic of Covid-19, particularly lockdowns and reassignments of health personnel and equipment, are impacting the performance of TB prevention and care programmes. Estimates of the impact of reductions in the performance of global TB detection and care on TB mortality over 2020 are presented. A global TB case detection decrease by an average 25% over a period of 3 months (as compared to the level of detection before the pandemic), will lead to a predicted additional 190 000 (56 000 – 406 000) TB deaths (a 13% increase), bringing the total to 1.66 (1.3 – 2.1) million TB deaths in 2020, near the global level of TB mortality of the year 2015.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
No funding was received.
Author Declarations
All relevant ethical guidelines have been followed; any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained and details of the IRB/oversight body are included in the manuscript.
Yes
All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.
Yes
I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).
Yes
I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.
Yes
Data Availability
All model input data are publicly available.