Effects of COVID-19 prevention procedures on other common infections: a systematic review

Since the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) began, necessary measures to prevent virus transmission and reduce mortality have been implemented, including mandatory public use of masks, regular hand-sanitizing and hand-washing, social distancing, avoidance of crowds, remote work, and cancellation of public events. During and after the introduction of COVID-19 lockout, we performed a systematic review of available published literature to investigate the incidence of seasonal influenza and other respiratory viral infections.

PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Research Gate, and the World Health Organization databases and websites were systematically searched for original studies concerning the impact of COVID-19 prevention means and measures on other common respiratory infectious diseases during the pandemic published by March 2021.

The findings showed that the adherence to health protocols to prevent COVID-19 could help to reduce the incidence of other infectious diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

The implemented prevention measures and protocols might have reduced the incidence of influenza and some other common respiratory infections. However, controversies exist on this matter and future large population-based studies might provide further information to address these controversies.