The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and childhood vaccination services in Guinea: an interrupted time series analysis.

Publication date: Dec 23, 2025

Evidence impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health-related indicator in Sub-Saharan Africa is limited. We aimed to assess the indirect effect of COVID-19 on essential health service and outcomes in Guinea. In this interrupted time series analysis, we analysed a nationally surveillance data from January 2018 to December 2022 of nine indicators of HIV, malaria, tuberculosis (TB) and childhood vaccination. We fitted a Poisson segmented regression model accounting for seasonality to estimate the immediate impact of the COVID-19 on these outcomes as well as per-pandemic trend through incidence rate ratio (IRRs) with 95% CIs. Between January 2018 and December 2022, the month-to-month (quarter-to-quarter for TB) changes before COVID-19 outbreak increased from 0. 4% to 6. 4% in all indicators except for TB therapeutic success rate (IRR 0. 995, 95% CI 0. 987 to 1. 004). Overall, there was a decrease in three indicators ranging from 6% for pentavalent vaccine (IRR 0. 940, 0. 906 to 0. 974) to 15% for TB total cases notification (IRR 0. 850, 0. 785 to 0. 920). The pandemic COVID-19 trend significantly downward monthly for four indicators ranging from 0. 8% for in-patient malaria cases (IRR 0. 992, 0. 986 to 0. 998) to 8% for PCR test in infants (IRR 0. 920, 0. 902 to 0. 938), and significantly increased monthly by 2. 5% for TB-positive microscopy (IRR 1. 025, 1. 015 to 1. 036) and by 0. 9% for TB therapeutic success rate (IRR 1. 009, 1. 001 to 1. 017). In Guinea, during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the malaria indicators were generally maintained, while the number of HIV tests in infants, childhood vaccines and TB indicators were heavily impacted. There is an urgent need for more protective and targeted strategies to improve the preparedness of the healthcare service.

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