Browsing by Author "CHISANKANE, Chrispine Chisulo"

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    The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Diagnosis and Management of Tuberculosis Patients in Mpongwe District
    (2022) CHISANKANE, Chrispine Chisulo
    Introduction: Many countries with a high TB burden like Zambia remain reliant on in-person and community-based directly observed therapy for TB treatment. With the current COVID-19 pandemic, conditions that affect mobility and access to care, both seem impractical. Global TB is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: The study aimed to explore the impact COVID-19 pandemic has had on TB diagnosis and management in 2019 to 2020 in Mpongwe District. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in Mpongwe district. Sample size was 155 participants. Study health facilities were selected using a convenience sampling procedure due to ease of access for researcher to collect data, furthermore, the selected health facilities were among those with high number of TB patients. Structure questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.0. Results: Out of 155 designed sample size, 149 participants were enrolled. 81% of the former TB patients had experience health care restriction during peak of Covid 19. 75% of the Healthcare workers had difficulties diagnosing TB due to symptom similarities between Covid 19 and TB. A reduction in the TB notification had reduced 92 in 2019 to 85 in 2020. Conclusion: This study highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic had caused substantial changes in TB care. This study found that 62% of former TB patients had experienced challenges accessing TB treatment and care while at least 91% of the former TB patients at some point had drug interruptions during the peak of Covid 19, Patients were unable to access medical services due to concerns about getting infected with COVID-19. 53% of the TB patients had experience challenges with DOT especially those who were under DOT plan community and Healthcare worker. The study also shows that Covid 19 had significantly impact on both community and health facility intensive case finding and treatment supporters were unable to conduct contact tracing. It was found that Mpongwe district had reduced TB notification in 2021 as compared to 2019. Key words: Covid 19, SARS COV 2, TB, Covid pandemic, DOTS, TB Treatment supporters, Healthcare workers