u/yakkov

It has to be said this is not the most common subtype of long covid. However it is incredibly impactful if your covid infection reactivates your latent TB that you didn't even know you had. Especially if it's an antibiotic-resistant strain

Link to study: https://doi.org/10.1002/jgf2.70139

I memed about this before (https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19\_Pandemic/comments/1n7nmkv/they\_said\_covid\_is\_just\_a\_respiratory\_disease/) and there was a fair criticism that the evidence provided wasn't that good. However just recently this study from Japan came out which provides solid evidence that this is indeed the case.

Tuberculosis is airborne too, so your mask will protect against that as well.

HIV/AIDS can also do this, so that's another one for the "Covid as Airborne AIDS" analogy (https://www.ajpmfocus.org/article/S2773-0654(25)00146-4/fulltext). In some countries especially the global south HIV/TB co-infection is a significant public health problem.

Random thing with me. I went to the doctor the other day and he stared at me for a moment and asked me why I was wearing a mask. We really have a long way to go with this whole telling-people-how-bad-covid-is. I wonder if next time he'll ask why I'm washing my hands or why would anyone use a clean needle when injecting patients.

New study from Japan

Key points:

• Catching covid is associated with 314% higher likelyhood of later getting and being treated for TB. In other words for every 100 people in the uninfected control group who got TB, there were 414 people who caught covid who then got TB.

• For people with a prior history of TB, the risk increase was 1370% compared with 284% in those without TB history, suggesting that covid is reactivating people's latent TB. You know often the prior TB treatment wont have completely cleared the bacteria but only put it into a latent state ready to come back if you get immunesuppressed.

• For people hospitalized with covid, the risk increase was even higher at 1390%. Suggesting a dose-response relationship: the worse your covid, the more likely you are to get TB.

This is consistent with the idea that covid damages the immune system and makes people more likely to get sick with other things.

Link to study:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgf2.70139

The other OP images are data from NHS England showing how the ongoing covid pandemic has coincided with TB cases going up in England. They were made by this person on twtter/X (https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1992314428977733786 and https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1982168251346878558)

Before this study there was already evidence that the immune suppression caused by covid can give people TB. Although these sample sizes were quite small.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277807

https://doi.org/10.1002/iid3.1275

Some quotes:

> Tuberculosis after recovering from COVID-19 is becoming more common, potentially leading to a TB outbreak in the post-COVID-19 era. The immunosuppressive nature of the disease and its treatment modalities may contribute to post COVID-19 TB

.

> There seems to be an association between prior history of COVID-19 and a future diagnosis of TB partially linked to the severity of disease. The findings of the current study may serve as a basis for further studies to determine the need for and efficacy of measures to follow-up COVID-19 patients at an increased risk for developing TB.

Japan is a good country to study this, as many countries in East Asia were very effective at controlling covid in the early years. Meaning that when the scientists build their control group the people in it are very likely to be genuinely uninfected. I've noticed in studies from North America or Europe a lot of the covid-related findings from studies are smaller, and I bet thats because in these regions a lot of people caught covid but were never tested and so it doesnt appear on their medical records. Meaning any control group will have many who did catch covid, resulting in any measured effect seeming smaller.

New study from Japan

Key points:

• Catching covid is associated with 414% higher likelyhood of later getting and being treated for TB. In other words for every 100 people in the uninfected control group who got TB, there were 414 people who caught covid who then got TB.

• For people with a prior history of TB, the risk increase was 1470% compared with 384% in those without TB history, suggesting that covid is reactivating people's latent TB. You know often the prior TB treatment wont have completely cleared the bacteria but only put it into a latent state ready to come back if you get immunesuppressed.

• For people hospitalized with covid, the risk increase was even higher at 1490%. Suggesting a dose-response relationship: the worse your covid, the more likely you are to get TB.

This is consistent with the idea that covid damages the immune system and makes people more likely to get sick with other things.

Link to study:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgf2.70139

The other OP images are data from NHS England showing how the ongoing covid pandemic has coincided with TB cases going up in England. They were made by this person on twtter/X (https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1992314428977733786 and https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1982168251346878558)

Before this study there was already evidence that the immune suppression caused by covid can give people TB. Although these sample sizes were quite small.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277807

https://doi.org/10.1002/iid3.1275

Some quotes:

> Tuberculosis after recovering from COVID-19 is becoming more common, potentially leading to a TB outbreak in the post-COVID-19 era. The immunosuppressive nature of the disease and its treatment modalities may contribute to post COVID-19 TB

.

> There seems to be an association between prior history of COVID-19 and a future diagnosis of TB partially linked to the severity of disease. The findings of the current study may serve as a basis for further studies to determine the need for and efficacy of measures to follow-up COVID-19 patients at an increased risk for developing TB.

Japan is a good country to study this, as many countries in East Asia were very effective at controlling covid in the early years. Meaning that when the scientists build their control group the people in it are very likely to be genuinely uninfected. I've noticed in studies from North America or Europe a lot of the covid-related findings from studies are smaller, and I bet thats because in these regions a lot of people caught covid but were never tested and so it doesnt appear on their medical records. Meaning any control group will have many who did catch covid, resulting in any measured effect seeming smaller.