Reducing tuberculosis transmission by genotype-based contact tracing coupled with public health containment measures: a case study during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan

Abstract

The extent to which COVID-19 public health and social measures reduced tuberculosis transmission remains unclear. We elucidated the recent tuberculosis infection with a novel genotype-based contact tracing from 2017 to 2021. These patients were recruited as the contact tracing group in contrast to the comparison group of tuberculosis cases from the general population via the notifiable nationwide system without genotyping. The relative changes in tuberculosis cases before and during the pandemic between the contact tracing group and the comparison group were used to estimate the effectiveness of reducing tuberculosis transmission. We found a significant 81% reduction in tuberculosis transmission during the first 2 years of the pandemic. This finding demonstrates that a molecular epidemiological approach with public health containment measures will enable a moderate-burden tuberculosis country to reach the End TB targets by 2035.