The coronavirus pandemic has led to a reduction in several communicable diseases, such as the flu. This is because the measures of social distancing and personal hygiene taken to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus also have the effect of reducing the transmission of other infectious diseases of the respiratory system. However, the treatment of other infectious diseases that have plagued world health for decades seems to have waned. The Professors of the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Gikas Majorkinis and Thanos Dimopoulos (Rector of EKPA) summarize these data.
More specifically, there is a deterioration of control indicators in all major epidemics of chronic infectious diseases affecting the planet, especially in developing countries. Characteristic is that progress in controlling the TB, AIDS and malaria epidemics is slowing down. This is due to both the biology of the disease and the atony of preventive medicine.
In principle, in contrast to acute respiratory infections, such as COVID-19 and influenza, these infections are less affected by social distancing with little possible effect on tuberculosis. One explanation lies in the fact that acute infectious diseases complete the physical disease in a maximum of 30 days while chronic infectious diseases have a physical disease that lasts for months or even years. The other explanation lies in the fact that the ways in which AIDS and malaria are transmitted are different from those of the coronavirus.
With regard to the prevention of these diseases, it seems that the programs for preventive diagnostic control of the population have weakened due to the great need for coronavirus diagnosis. Also, doctors did not have time to examine and treat these diseases due to the excessive workload in patients with COVID-19. Finally, funding for prevention and treatment of these diseases appears to have declined.
The positives of the pandemic indicate that the experience from developing the coronavirus vaccine could be used to develop a new, better TB vaccine. It is characteristic that the existing tuberculosis vaccine is slightly different from the first tuberculosis vaccine in 1921
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