Malawi’s work on community Tuberculosis (TB) has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Tuberculosis Control Program has reported.

This follows a recent TB report for 2021 released by the World Health Organization (WHO), which indicated that Covid-19 has increased TB deaths for the first time after a decade.

National TB Control Program Manager Dr. James Mpunga stated that amidst the pandemic volunteers who provide door to door TB services and get inputs from the community on TB issues were unable to function effectively.

Despite this Malawi has managed to record a TB treatment success rate of 88% and for Multi Drug Resistant TB (MDRTB) is at 73%.

The WHO has reported that, TB services are among many others disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but the impact on TB has been particularly severe.

For example, approximately, 1.5 million people died from TB in 2020 (including 214 000 among HIV positive people).