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. 2021 May 10;6(2):74.
doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed6020074.

Assessing the Real-Time Impact of COVID-19 on TB and HIV Services: The Experience and Response from Selected Health Facilities in Nairobi, Kenya

Irene Mbithi  1 , Pruthu Thekkur  2   3 , Jeremiah Muhwa Chakaya  1   4   5 , Elizabeth Onyango  6 , Philip Owiti  6 , Ngugi Catherine Njeri  7 , Ajay M V Kumar  2   3   8 , Srinath Satyanarayana  2   3 , Hemant D Shewade  2   3 , Mohammed Khogali  9 , Rony Zachariah  9 , I D Rusen  10 , Selma Dar Berger  2 , Anthony D Harries  2   11
Affiliations

Assessing the Real-Time Impact of COVID-19 on TB and HIV Services: The Experience and Response from Selected Health Facilities in Nairobi, Kenya

Irene Mbithi et al. Trop Med Infect Dis. .

Abstract

There was concern that the COVID-19 pandemic would adversely affect TB and HIV programme services in Kenya. We set up real-time monthly surveillance of TB and HIV activities in 18 health facilities in Nairobi so that interventions could be implemented to counteract anticipated declining trends. Aggregate data were collected and reported monthly to programme heads during the COVID-19 period (March 2020-February 2021) using EpiCollect5 and compared with monthly data collected during the pre-COVID period (March 2019-February 2020). During the COVID-19 period, there was an overall decrease in people with presumptive pulmonary TB (31.2%), diagnosed and registered with TB (28.0%) and in those tested for HIV (50.5%). Interventions to improve TB case detection and HIV testing were implemented from August 2020 and were associated with improvements in all parameters during the second six months of the COVID-19 period. During the COVID-19 period, there were small increases in TB treatment success (65.0% to 67.0%) and referral of HIV-positive persons to antiretroviral therapy (91.2% to 92.9%): this was more apparent in the second six months after interventions were implemented. Programmatic interventions were associated with improved case detection and treatment outcomes during the COVID-19 period, suggesting that monthly real-time surveillance is useful during unprecedented events.

Keywords: COVID-19; EpiCollect5; HIV; Kenya; Nairobi; TB treatment outcomes; antiretroviral therapy; operational research; presumptive tuberculosis; tuberculosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interests. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cumulative number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Kenya between March 2020 and February 2021, as reported to the World Health Organization.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Numbers presenting each month with presumptive PTB in 18 health facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, during pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods (B) Numbers presenting each month with registered TB in 18 health facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, during pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Treatment success among those enrolled each month in 18 health facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, during pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Numbers presenting each month for HIV testing in 18 health facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, during pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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