The impact of COVID-19 on tuberculosis: challenges and opportunities

The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) from a seafood market in Wuhan, China, has ushered in a new era. It transformed into a pandemic, seized global attention, and was the biggest highlight of the year 2020. The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has jeopardized health systems and greatly affected socioeconomic parameters. With global focus on fighting this unpredictable fight with this new virus, the biggest chronic infectious killer, mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb), was hugely affected from this shift in attention. Due to certain similarities in the behavior of the two infectious agents, there have been inevitable consequences. On one hand, administrative measures to contain SARS-CoV-2 have simultaneously led to a breaking in the chain of tuberculosis (TB) management. Consequently, a regression occurred in the milestones achieved in the battle against TB. On the other hand, the same measures and heightened hygiene awareness has helped to decrease the spread of the TB bacilli. With an improved understanding of the interrelations and the outcomes noticed in 2020, we can better gear ourselves to develop a more sophisticated and robust strategy to tilt the balance against TB. Keeping this in mind, in this review we aim to discuss in detail the implications of SARS-CoV-2 on an already unwavering health hazard: TB.