The Experience of Observational Departments’ Functioning for Treatment of Patients with Tuberculosis from COVID-19 Contact and Convalescents after COVID-19

Relevance. To control COVID-19, a net of special infection hospitals and departments was created, a system of medicaments and protective means’ supply was set up, necessary normative and regulatory documentation was developed and overall vaccination of population was performed in Moscow. Within frames of work for prophylaxis of COVID-19 spread in patients with tuberculosis at in-patient units of the State Budgetary Healthcare Institution of Moscow city «The Moscow Research and Clinical Center for Tuberculosis Control of the Moscow Government Department of Health” (hereinafter referred as the Center), observational departments for treatment of patients with tuberculosis from COVID-19 contact and convalescents after COVID-19. Aims. To evaluate specialized observational departments’ work as part of general anti-epidemic control measure system for COVID- 19 at tuberculosis hospitals. Materials and methods. The observational departments’ work within the period of 2020–2022 with 1075 patients treated including 400 patients from COVID-19 contact areas (37.2%) and 675 convalescent patients after COVID-19 (62.8%), was analyzed. The results obtained during the study were statistically treated by means of application program package Microsoft Office 2007. The quantitative parameters with presumably normal distribution were described with mean arithmetic values (M) and standard deviations (SD), and 95% confidence interval (CI 95%). The estimation of significance of differences between outcomes was evaluated with the Pearson χ2 test. The differences were considered to be statistically significant with p < 0,05. Results and discussion. The evaluation data on functioning efficacy of observational departments for patients with tuberculosis from COVID-19 contact and convalescent patients with tuberculosis after COVID-19 within the large medical institution hospital of physiatry profile. Among all patients, 153 of patients who fell ill with COVID-19 (14.2%; 95% CI [12.21–16.38%]) were determined, which lowered the number of COVID-19 areas at in-patient departments of the Center by 11.8%. The mean timeframes of COVID- 19 determination in general were 8.0 days: 5.4 days among contacts from new coronavirus infection areas and 12.4 days among convalescents at the department for the treatment of patients with tuberculosis and new coronavirus infection. The comparative analysis showed that COVID-19 was more frequently determined in tuberculosis patients from the contact with those who fell ill with COVID-19 (p < 0.001) than in convalescents. Conclusions. During medical care for patients of physiatry profile in Moscow city, a wide range of management decisions consisting in the change of routing system in specialized medical care, was taken. Among them, creation and functioning of observational departments for contact persons from COVID-19 areas and convalescents after COVID-19 play a particular role.Creation of such departments within a large medical institution enabled the contemporary isolation of contact persons from COVID- 19 areas and convalescents after COVID-19 and allowed the additional control of nosocomial infection spread