Abstract:

Objective: To understand the impact of different levels of emergency response to COVID-19 in 2020 on human resource and routine work of tuberculosis (TB) prevention and control institutions in Hunan Province. Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted among the TB prevention and control institutions at provincial, municipal and county levels to compare the human resource and the work status of TB prevention and control institutions during the different levels of response for COVID-19. Routine work conducted by the prevention institutions before and after the COVID-19 outbreak (2019 and 2020), including working meetings, training and supervision activities were compared. A total of 140 pieces of valid questionnaire were retrieved, accounting for 96.6% (140/145) of all TB prevention and control institutions in the whole province. Results: In 2020, 134 of the 140 institutions (95.7%, 134/140) had staff being temporarily reallocated. Three hundred and fifty-eight (87.1%, 358/411) of staff and 29.2% (1281.5/4385.7) of these staff’s working time had been reallocated to COVID-19 response. In 2020, the number of work meetings, training and supervision held in the province were 105, 181 and 528, respectively, which decreased by 30.0% (45/150), 24.3% (58/239) and 28.1% (206/734) compared with 2019. According to the analysis results at the provincial, municipal and county levels, the reduction of working activities of county level was more obvious in the emergency response period (January-March 2020). From January to March 2019, meeting activities, training activities, and supervision activities accounted for 36.9% (48/130), 25.7% (56/218), and 20.2% (133/659) of the entire year, respectively, while from January to March 2020, they accounted for only 11.3% (11/97), 9.0% (15/166), and 10.9% (52/478) of the entire year of 2020, and the differences were statistically significant (χ²=18.901, 17.339, 17.602; all P<0.001). Conclusion: The COVID-19 epidemic has impacts on and brought challenges to the work of TB prevention and control institutions in Hunan Province, especially during the emergency response period. Measures for TB prevention and control should be strengthened to eliminate the impact of COVID-19 as soon as possible.

Key words: Tuberculosis, Coronaviridae infections, Health manpower, Preventive health services, Comparative study