Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on unfavorable tuberculosis outcomes: a comparative analysis of unhoused and general populations.

Publication date: Jul 02, 2025

Tuberculosis care has been seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Few studies have assessed the impact of the pandemic on tuberculosis outcomes in vulnerable populations. We aimed to evaluate tuberculosis outcomes before and during the pandemic in general and in unhoused populations in ScE3o Paulo, Brazil. We performed a retrospective cohort study that compared tuberculosis outcomes between the unhoused and general populations using data from 2017 to 2019 and 2020 to 2022. Unfavorable outcomes were defined as loss to follow-up, treatment failure, death, toxicity, and resistance to drugs. Cox regression models and Kaplan‒Meier curves were used to evaluate the data. Among 47,293 patients diagnosed with tuberculosis using the National Notifiable Diseases Information System (SINAN) between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2021, 29,247 patients were included in our study. Patients diagnosed with TB during the pandemic were more likely to have unfavorable outcomes in the general population (hazard ratio [HR], 1. 45, [95% confidence interval (CI), 1. 37 to 1. 55], p 

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Concepts Keywords
Brazil Adult
Retrospective Aged
Tuberculosis Brazil
COVID-19
COVID-19 pandemic period
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Pandemics
Retrospective Studies
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Unfavorable outcome
Unhoused
Vulnerable Populations
Young Adult

Semantics

Type Source Name
disease MESH COVID-19 pandemic
disease MESH tuberculosis
pathway KEGG Tuberculosis
disease MESH treatment failure
disease MESH death
pathway REACTOME Reproduction

Original Article

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