Annals of Medicine and Surgery 62 (2021) 80–83
Available online 12 January 2021
2049-0801/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of IJS Publishing Group Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Case Report
COVID-19 and active primary tuberculosis in a low-resource setting: A
case report
Muhammad Anis Baskara
a, *
, Firdian Makrufardi
b
, Ardiana Dinisari
c
a
House Offcer of Prambanan General Hospital, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
b
House Offcer of PKU Muhammadiyah Bantul General Hospital, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
c
Department of Internal Medicine, Prambanan General Hospital, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
A R T I C L E INFO
Keywords:
COVID-19
Tuberculosis
Low-resource setting
Case report
SARS-Cov-2
ABSTRACT
Introduction and importance: Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate
respiratory illness. But there are few studies that explain the clinical features of COVID-19 patients with active
primary tuberculosis. In a low-resource setting, it is diffcult to distinguish the clinical characteristics of COVID-
19 from other respiratory diseases. Here, we briefy report the frst case of COVID-19 with active primary
tuberculosis in our low-resource institution.
Case presentation: A fourty two year old diabetic Indonesian male was admitted to emergency department in
November 2020 due to vertigo-like dizzines for one week, tension type headache, shivering, cough with sputum,
abdominal pain, and night sweats. Xpert MTB-RIF Assay G4 detect Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Bacteria (MTB)
without rifampicin resistance, but the Tubex test for antibody IgM anti-O9 was negative. Patient admitted to
isolation ward for suspected COVID-19 with separate rooms due to tuberculosis, until 24 hours evaluation of
nasopharyng and oropharyng swab test performed. On the second day, the evaluation swab test was positive for
COVID-19.
Clinical discussion: Limited or no protection against COVID-19 is one of the problems that leads to co-infection.
Now, there is no recommendation treatment for COVID-19 sufferer with tuberculosis co-infection or vice versa.
Ventilation support and intensive care for infectious patient must be accessible, yet still unavailable in our
institution.
Conclusion: A low resource setting has its own challenges in handling COVID-19. Further studies are needed to
address the clinical characteristics, diagnosis and management in COVID-19 patients with active tuberculosis.
1. Introduction
Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was
reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China by the World Health Orga-
nization (WHO) on December 31, 2019. Currently this virus is called
COVID-19 and pose major public health and governance challenges [1].
As of 11 November, the Government of Indonesia announced 502,110
confrmed cases and 16,002 deaths, accompanied by issue of limited
laboratory resources in some areas [2]. Due to resource limitations and
challenges accessing adequate care, the low-resource setting pose the
highest of morbidity and mortality in COVID-19 with tuberculosis
infection [18].
Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild
to moderate respiratory illness. The diffculty in distinguishing clinical
characteristics of COVID-19 from other respiratory diseases was re-
ported in a low-resource setting study [3]. A study of active tuberculosis
in COVID-19 revealed unknown patient outcomes and the clinical fea-
tures are not fully elucidated [4]. Previous studies have demonstrated
that the presence of any comorbidity has been associated with a risk of
developing acute respiratory distress syndrome [5]. Diabetes, hyper-
tension, respiratory diseases, cardiac diseases, pregnancy, renal diseases
and malignancy were the most common comorbidities that associated
with poorer prognosis [6]. It has been hypothesized that infectious
disease such as tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis could
predispose to the development of COVID-19, but it not clearly under-
stood [7]. Here, we briefy report the frst case of COVID-19 with active
* Corresponding author. Prambanan General Hospital Jl, Prambanan-Piyungan Km, Delegan, Sumberharjo, Prambanan, Sleman, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta,
55572, Indonesia.
E-mail address: anisbaskara15@gmail.com (M.A. Baskara).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Annals of Medicine and Surgery
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/amsu
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amsu.2020.12.052
Received 1 December 2020; Received in revised form 28 December 2020; Accepted 29 December 2020