History

The fact that COVID-19 causes severe infection in lungs and general respiratory system, thus it shares the site of infection and pathogenicity mode with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, also, the fact that BCG vaccination is a mandatory approach in Iraq. These criteria directed our interest to detect the incidence rate of COVID-19 infection in tuberculosis patients in the city of Basrah (south of Iraq), depending on the weakness of their immune system, the similarity of the infection site and BCG vaccine effects. In this study data were collected from 215 tuberculosis patients who registered in T.B. and Respiratory Specialize Center in Basrah city, for both sexes and for all age groups, during a period extended from November 2020 to February 2021. All cases were surveyed for the presence of the COVID- 19 infection.Out of 215 patients, 8 (4%) patients were represented COVID- 19 infection associated with tuberculosis infection. All 8 patients were infected with extra pulmonary tuberculosis. The obtained results were showed that the incidence of tuberculosis patients with COVID- 19 is almost low and most of them were in extra pulmonary tuberculosisCurrent study aims to correlate between lower level of COVID-19 infections and death rate among tuberculosis patients in Basrah with the national BCG immunization program in Iraq, in addition to correlate between BCG vaccine and innate immune memory or trained immunity.