Cavitary pulmonary tuberculosis with COVID-19 coinfection

Zohaib Yousaf; Adeel A Khan; Haseeb A Chaudhary; Kamran Mushtaq; Jabeed Parengal; Mohamad Aboukamar; Muhammad Umair Khan; Mouhand F H Mohamed

doi:10.1016/j.idcr.2020.e00973

Cavitary pulmonary tuberculosis with COVID-19 coinfection

IDCases. 2020:22:e00973. doi: 10.1016/j.idcr.2020.e00973. Epub 2020 Sep 28.

Authors

Zohaib Yousaf^{1

2}, Adeel A Khan¹, Haseeb A Chaudhary³, Kamran Mushtaq^{2

4}, Jabeed Parengal⁵, Mohamad Aboukamar⁵, Muhammad Umair Khan^{2

4}, Mouhand F H Mohamed^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar.
² Dresden International University, Dresden, (DIU), Germany.
³ Medicine, Reading Hospital, Tower Health Medical Group, West Reading, United States.
⁴ Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar.
⁵ Department of Infectious Disease, Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained the healthcare system worldwide, leading to an approach favoring judicious resource allocation. A focus on resource preservation can result in anchoring bias and missed concurrent diagnosis. Coinfection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has implications beyond morbidity at the individual level and can lead to unintended TB exposure to others. We present six cases of COVID-19 with newly diagnosed cavitating pulmonary tuberculosis to highlight the significance of this phenomenon and favorable outcomes if recognized early.

Keywords: COVID-19; Co-infection; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Pulmonary tuberculosis; SAR-CoV-2; TB.

Publication types

Case Reports