• Jinsoo Min, Hyung Woo Kim, Hyeon Kyoung Koo, Yousang Ko, Jee Youn Oh, Jaetae Kim, Jiyeon Yang, Yunhyung Kwon, Young Joon Park, Ji Young Kang, Lee Sung Soon SS https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6422-2313 Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Ilsan Paik H, Jae Seuk Park, and Ju Sang Kim.
• Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Daejeon St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
• J. Korean Med. Sci. 2020 Nov 9; 35 (43): e388.

BackgroundThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused disruptions to healthcare systems and endangered the control and prevention of tuberculosis (TB). We investigated the nationwide effects of COVID-19 on the national Public-Private Mix (PPM) TB control project in Korea, using monitoring indicators from the Korean PPM monitoring database.MethodsThe Korean PPM monitoring database includes data from patients registered at PPM hospitals throughout the country. Data of six monitoring indicators for active TB cases updated between July 2019 and June 2020 were collected. The data of each cohort throughout the country and in Daegu-Gyeongbuk, Seoul Metropolitan Area, and Jeonnam-Jeonbuk were collated to provide nationwide data. The data were compared using the χ² test for trend to evaluate quarterly trends of each monitoring indicator at the national level and in the prespecified regions.ResultsTest coverages of sputum smear (P = 0.622) and culture (P = 0.815), drug susceptibility test (P = 0.750), and adherence rate to initial standard treatment (P = 0.901) at the national level were not significantly different during the study period. The rate of loss to follow-up among TB cases at the national level was not significantly different (P = 0.088); however, the treatment success rate among the smear-positive drug-susceptible pulmonary TB cohort at the national level significantly decreased, from 90.6% to 84.1% (P < 0.001). Treatment success rate in the Seoul metropolitan area also significantly decreased during the study period, from 89.4% to 84.5% (P = 0.006).ConclusionOur study showed that initial TB management during the COVID-19 pandemic was properly administered under the PPM project in Korea. However, our study cannot confirm or conclude a decreased treatment success rate after the COVID-19 pandemic due to limited data.© 2020 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.

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