Table 1.

Number of notified TB cases reported before, during and after implementation of COVID-19 forced lockdown in 2020 compared with the same period during the previous year of 2019.

Periodˆ	No. of TB notifications, 2019	No. of TB notifications, 2020	Absolute difference	Percentage Decrease
Pre-lockdown	545,512	553,561	(8049)	1.5%
Lockdown	507,749	224,450	283,299	−55.8%
Post-lockdown	643,522	405,122	238,400	−37.0%
Total	1,696,783	1,183,133	513,650	−30.3%

Note: () figure in parenthesis is excess number of TB notifications during 2020 compared to 2019; ˆnationwide COVID-19 forced lockdown was imposed during March 25, 2020 to May 31, 2020. Hence, pre-lockdown period was considered form 1 January to 24 March, lockdown form 25 March to 31 May and post-lockdown from 1 June to 31 August; COVID-19, coronavirus disease; TB, tuberculosis.

Source: Author's calculations based on TB notifications data extracted from the NI-KSHAY database (NTEP 2020).