Abstract

Since the first day of war in Ukraine, despite the circumstances, tuberculosis (TB) service is working in its best. Kharkiv oblast is one of the areas with the most destroyed infrastructure.

We aimed to analyze the impact of war to TB inpatient treatment lethal outcomes in a given TB institution.

Materials and methods. Statistics reports from one of Kharkiv TB dispensary for 2019-2022 yy were analyzed: number of hospitalized patients with active TB; lethal outcomes and their structure by age, sex, HIV status and numbers of days (0, 1-30, 30 and more) spent in the hospital before patient died.

Results. Before COVID 19 pandemics, in 2019 there were treated 692 patients, 42 (6,1%) died, among them 15 (35,8%) - HIV-infected. In 2020 (then the COVID 19 lockdown was the most strict) the number of inpatient-treated TB patients significantly decreased (457) with 38 (8,3%) lethal outcomes and 12 (31,6%) HIV-TB co-infection cases. Despite the fact that the restrictions were almost abolished, in 2021 there were treated just 481 TB patients, but the lethality was significantly higher - 58 (12,1%), p?0,05.

In 2022 TB service in Kharkiv had been suffered. Three big local departments of regional TB dispensary totally stopped functioning, they been under the russians` troops occupation until September, 2022. Never less, 538 patients had their TB treatment in the main building in Kharkiv. Lethality was 9,9% (53 patients died), among them - 23 (43,4%) HIV-infected. Most deaths occur yearly in the first month (0-30 days) of hospitalization (58%±4) with no difference.

Conclusions. HIV-TB co-infection together with the difficulties of war, as well as the echoes of COVID 19 lockdowns, are the most significant causes of TB mortality.