Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis and latent tuberculosis infection diagnosis in healthcare workers.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the prevalence of LTBI and TB in the pre-pandemic period (2017-2019) with the pandemic period (2020-2022), in a group of HCW.

METHODS: Retrospective study. Data on TB diagnosis was retrieved from the hospital information system database. All HCWs who underwent tuberculin skin test (TST) from January 2017 to December 2022 were included in the study.

RESULTS: In the pre-pandemic period (2017-2019), 163 HCW out of 710 were TST positive (22.9%), and in the pandemic period (2020-2022), 85 HCW out of 449 were TST positive (18.9%) (p = 0.11). There were 10 HCW diagnosed with TB in the pre-pandemic period (incidence: 41.7/100,000) and 2 in the pandemic period (incidence: 8.3/100,000) (p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that TB incidence was reduced during the pandemic period in HCW. TST positivity was also reduced, although not statistically significant.