Mumbai: 452 were tested positive for TB, 37 died so far since 2020

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) Tuberculosis department has been screening TB patients for the disease.

This comes as the immunocompromised status being a major risk factor of coronavirus.

Since COVID-19 has taken a toll on Mumbai, less than two per cent of TB patients have been found positive in the past 18 months.

BMC has tested 25,303 TB patients, since the pandemic started in 2020, out of which 452 were tested positive. Of these, 37 have died so far.

According to officials, they had adopted the bilateral testing policy with which they were able to identify TB patients with COVID-19. As many of the coronavirus symptoms -- cough, fever, heaviness in the chest, weakness, etc -- are similar to TB.

However, the test positivity rate (TPR) among the tested TB patients was 1.8 per cent.

As per the BMC data, 13,155 TB patients were tested for COVID-19 and 298 people tested positive and 25 died in 2020 whereas 12,148 people were tested, out of which 154 tested positive, and 12 died till August 2021.

As per research, at the beginning of the pandemic, everyone thought TB patients will be the worst affected as both coronavirus and the TB bacteria are primarily known to attack the lungs. Comparatively, very few TB patients have contracted the infection.