COVID‐19 case fatality rate and tuberculosis in a metropolitan setting

Rojas‐Bolivar, Daniel; Intimayta‐Escalante, Claudio; Cardenas‐Jara, Ariana; Jandarov, Roman; Huaman, Moises A.

In this study, we aimed to assess the relationship between tuberculosis case rate and COVID‐19 case fatality rate (CFR) among districts within a tuberculosis‐endemic metropolitan area. We analyzed data from 43 districts in Lima, Peru. We used districts as the units of observation. Linear regressions were used to investigate the relationship between COVID‐19 CFRs and tuberculosis case rates. The mean COVID‐19 CFR in each district for reporting Weeks 5–32 was used as the dependent variable. Independent variable was the mean rate of confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis cases for 2017–2019 period. Analyses were adjusted by population density, socioeconomic status, crowded housing, health facility density, and case rates of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and HIV infection. The mean COVID‐19 CFR in Lima was 4.0% ± 1.1%. The mean tuberculosis rate was 16.0 cases per 10,000 inhabitants. In multivariate analysis, tuberculosis case rate was associated with COVID‐19 CFR (β = 1.26; 95% confidence interval: 0.24–2.28; p = .02), after adjusting for potential confounders. We found that Lima districts with a higher burden of tuberculosis exhibited higher COVID‐19 CFRs, independent of socioeconomic, and morbidity variables.