These diseases are making a comeback on the heels of COVID
Key Takeaways
When it comes to COVID-19, it’s hard to think of many upsides. But here's one: Public health precautions like social distancing, hand-washing, and mask requirements have resulted in unusually low cold and flu rates—even prompting a debate about whether ongoing masking in public should be more widely embraced, as is the case in some Asian countries.
Meanwhile, now that we’re back to mingling in crowds, the spread of common viruses is returning, and health experts worry that the upcoming winter flu season could be a beast.
Simultaneously, as the pandemic has rolled on, vaccination programs for other diseases, like measles, have been suspended in countries around the world. Indeed, as the world mustered a collective effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, a number of other diseases have managed to escape our attention. Recent data indicates there’s been an uptick in conditions like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), tuberculosis (TB), and even polio.
Here are four diseases that are making a comeback due to the pandemic.
Respiratory syncytial virus
In June of this year, the CDC issued a statement warning of a rise in RSV cases in parts of the Southern United States.
According to the CDC, the virus is spread via respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or through contact with contaminated surfaces. RSV is the most common cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia in children under the age of 1, and is “associated with severe disease in young children and older adults.” In a typical year, the virus leads to roughly 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths of adults over 65 years of age. It usually occurs in the fall and winter cold and flu season.
Compared with previous years, RSV activity remained relatively low from May 2020-March 2021, according to data collected by the CDC—likely the result of public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19. But case counts have since spiked. The rate of positive RSV antigen tests reported in July was more than 30 times higher than the same period last year.
The United States isn’t alone. The CDC notes that parts of Australia and South Africa have also seen increased RSV circulation. According to reports, Hong Kong experienced an “explosion” of respiratory infections when the country reopened its schools for in-person learning in October 2020, and in the United Kingdom, an increase in the number of children with RSV prompted health officials to issue a warning to parents to look out for symptoms.
In its statement, the CDC pointed out that, due to a reduction in the circulation of RSV during the winter of 2020-2021, children are likely now at an increased risk of developing severe RSV-associated illness because they’ve probably had lower than typical levels of exposure to the virus. The agency recommends that clinicians remain aware of the spike in cases and consider conducting RSV tests on symptomatic patients who test negative for SARS-CoV-2.
Tuberculosis
While some diseases are on the rise due to a lack of exposure, others are on the rise because efforts to keep them under control had to be temporarily put to the side. According to an April 2021 article published in Nature, this is the case with TB, a disease that kills roughly 1.4 million people in a typical year.
Data collected in India in March 2020 showed that the detection of new TB cases dropped by roughly 70% in one month. Sounds promising on the surface except that health officials said this “showed that cases were going undiagnosed and untreated as many nations diverted medical resources to tackling COVID-19.” In March of this year, the WHO issued a statement, warning that the number of patients receiving treatment for TB had dropped by more than 1 million globally. As a result, the fight against TB had been set back by more than a decade and an estimated 500,000 more people than usual may have died from TB infection in 2020.
According to a model produced by the Stop TB Partnership based in Geneva, Switzerland, and Imperial College London, a 3-month lockdown with a 10-month recovery back to normal TB services could result in 6.3 million additional cases and 1.4 million excess TB deaths worldwide between 2020-2025.
Measles
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, global rates of measles were on the rise as a result of underfunded health systems that couldn’t keep up with vaccination programs, according to another article in Nature, published in 2020. As a result, case counts had risen to nearly 870,000 and roughly 210,000 deaths, mostly among young children, in 2019.
After the pandemic was declared in March 2020, the WHO told countries to temporarily suspend all mass vaccination programs in order to stop the spread of COVID. While the WHO then issued guidance on safely resuming these programs in May, as of April 2021, 24 countries still hadn’t done so.
While measles cases remain relatively low, experts fear that this is simply an indication of disruptions to detection of the disease and reduced spread due to lockdowns. As COVID-19 restrictions continue to ease, rates of measles cases are anticipated to rise.
Read more about measles in the United States at MDLinx.
Polio
Like with measles, the pandemic has exacerbated an already-losing battle against polio. According to the 2020 Nature article, during both 2019 and 2020, cases of wild poliovirus rose in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which are the last two countries where the disease is endemic. Simultaneously, polio strains derived from vaccines are “raging” across a number of African countries.
The article states that cases of paralysis caused by both wild and vaccine-derived strains rose from 554 in 2019 to 1,216 in 2020, which is higher than they have been in years. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, wild poliovirus has now expanded into areas that were previously polio-free. In Africa, cases jumped from 328 in 2019 to more than 500 in 2020, with the virus spreading into six new countries (it is now present in 18 countries across the continent).
Click here to read more about the pandemic and flu rates on MDLinx.