NEW DELHI : The Union health ministry on Thursday directed authorities to conduct bidirectional covid-19 and tuberculosis (TB) screening, citing studies indicating that a history of active and latent TB is a risk factor in SARS CoV-2 infection.
This leads to higher susceptibility and shows severe symptoms and disease progression, the government said.The prevalence of TB among covid-19 patients has been found to be 0.37% to 4.47% in different studies, said the Union health ministry. “TB is associated with a 2.1-fold increased risk of severe covid-19 disease.
In addition, TB patients tend to have co-morbidity or living conditions such as malnutrition, diabetes, smoking, HIV, which increase their vulnerability," the ministry said in a guidance.