TY - JOUR
T1 - Diagnosis of tuberculosis among COVID-19 suspected cases in Ghana
AU - Afum, Theophilus
AU - Asare, Prince
AU - Asante-Poku, Adwoa
AU - Darko-Otchere, Isaac
AU - Morgan, Portia Abena
AU - Bedeley, Edmund
AU - Asandem, Diana Asema
AU - Musah, Abdul Basit
AU - Siam, Ishaque Mintah
AU - Tetteh, Phillip
AU - Adusi-Poku, Yaw
AU - Frimpong-Manso, Rita
AU - Kofi Bonney, Joseph Humphrey
AU - Ampofo, William
AU - Yeboah-Manu, Dorothy
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Afum et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Background Tuberculosis (TB) and COVID-19 pandemics are both diseases of public health threat globally. Both diseases are caused by pathogens that infect mainly the respiratory system, and are involved in airborne transmission; they also share some clinical signs and symptoms. We, therefore, took advantage of collected sputum samples at the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana to conduct differential diagnoses of long-standing endemic respiratory illness, particularly tuberculosis. Methodology Sputum samples collected through the enhanced national surveys from suspected COVID-19 patients and contact tracing cases were analyzed for TB. The sputum samples were processed using Cepheid’s GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay in pools of 4 samples to determine the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. Positive pools were then decoupled and analyzed individually. Details of positive TB samples were forwarded to the NTP for appropriate case management. Results Seven-hundred and seventy-four sputum samples were analyzed for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in both suspected COVID-19 cases (679/774, 87.7%) and their contacts (95/774, 12.3%). A total of 111 (14.3%) were diagnosed with SARS CoV-2 infection and six (0.8%) out of the 774 individuals tested positive for pulmonary tuberculosis: five (83.3%) males and one female (16.7%). Drug susceptibility analysis identified 1 (16.7%) rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis case. Out of the six TB positive cases, 2 (33.3%) tested positive for COVID-19 indicating a coinfection. Stratifying by demography, three out of the six (50%) were from the Ayawaso West District. All positive cases received appropriate treatment at the respective sub-district according to the national guidelines. Conclusion Our findings highlight the need for differential diagnosis among COVID-19 suspected cases and regular active TB surveillance in TB endemic settings.
AB - Background Tuberculosis (TB) and COVID-19 pandemics are both diseases of public health threat globally. Both diseases are caused by pathogens that infect mainly the respiratory system, and are involved in airborne transmission; they also share some clinical signs and symptoms. We, therefore, took advantage of collected sputum samples at the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana to conduct differential diagnoses of long-standing endemic respiratory illness, particularly tuberculosis. Methodology Sputum samples collected through the enhanced national surveys from suspected COVID-19 patients and contact tracing cases were analyzed for TB. The sputum samples were processed using Cepheid’s GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay in pools of 4 samples to determine the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. Positive pools were then decoupled and analyzed individually. Details of positive TB samples were forwarded to the NTP for appropriate case management. Results Seven-hundred and seventy-four sputum samples were analyzed for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in both suspected COVID-19 cases (679/774, 87.7%) and their contacts (95/774, 12.3%). A total of 111 (14.3%) were diagnosed with SARS CoV-2 infection and six (0.8%) out of the 774 individuals tested positive for pulmonary tuberculosis: five (83.3%) males and one female (16.7%). Drug susceptibility analysis identified 1 (16.7%) rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis case. Out of the six TB positive cases, 2 (33.3%) tested positive for COVID-19 indicating a coinfection. Stratifying by demography, three out of the six (50%) were from the Ayawaso West District. All positive cases received appropriate treatment at the respective sub-district according to the national guidelines. Conclusion Our findings highlight the need for differential diagnosis among COVID-19 suspected cases and regular active TB surveillance in TB endemic settings.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122014535&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0261849
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0261849
M3 - Article
C2 - 34962960
AN - SCOPUS:85122014535
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 12 December
M1 - e0261849
ER -
