Maintaining essential tuberculosis services during the COVID-19 pandemic, Philippines

To describe the implementation, use and cost of a phone-based tuberculosis case finding and case management intervention during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in two regions in the Philippines.

We implemented this phone-based intervention to maintain tuberculosis treatment support, active case finding and contact investigation efforts in 42 facilities, starting in June 2020. We established a dedicated mobile phone number for each centre and promoted the intervention on different media platforms. We recruited and trained staff members and provided them with tools for screening and patient follow-up. We collected data on tuberculosis screening, diagnosis and treatment initiation for this intervention and three comparator interventions over the same period. We collected data on number and type of calls placed and received. We estimated the additional cost of this intervention compared to the standard of care.

From October 2020 to September 2021, 14 tuberculosis contact centres, for which complete data were available, identified 43.5% (827/1901) of patients with bacteriologically confirmed tuberculosis enrolled in treatment among all comparator interventions. These centres managed 6187 calls over the same period. The additional cost of implementing and running the centre for 12 months was 398 United States dollars per facility.

The tuberculosis contact centre is a low-technology telehealth intervention which contributed to overall treatment initiation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional work should assess the extent to which the contact centre identifies tuberculosis patients previously missed by the health system, regardless of the pandemic.