查看文章

We are facing an unprecedented pandemic. A quarter of the world’s population is infected and, between 2020 and 2021, it is predicted that 10 million people will have fallen ill, 3 million will not have been diagnosed or received care, and more than 1 million—mainly the most vulnerable—will have died. 1 This pandemic is not COVID-19 but tuberculosis. On World Tuberculosis Day, it is worth comparing the COVID-19 and tuberculosis pandemics to ensure that, while we focus on the former, we do not forget the latter. A pandemic is defined as a disease that spreads across whole countries or the whole world. Tuberculosis and COVID-19 are both pandemics that show ongoing, sustained community transmission across continents. Indeed, no country is tuberculosis-free and this is likely to be the case soon for COVID-19.

There are striking similarities between the two pandemics. Both cause major infection-related …