Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria, and Maternal and Child Health Services, Uganda, 2020

Background: Access to healthcare services has been severely compromised in many countries by the COVID-19 pandemic. By June 30, 2020 Uganda had not gathered enough information on the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare services. We assessed the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Tuberculosis (TB), Malaria, and Maternal and Child Health (MCH) services. Methods: : We conducted a cross-sectional assessment during July 2020 in randomly selected health facilities across the four geographical regions of Uganda. We abstracted data on the number of clients seeking healthcare services from, the Out-Patient Department (OPD), HIV, TB, malaria, and MCH facility registers before (January-February) and during (April-May) the pandemic. We compared the outcomes before and during using the paired t-test. Results: : We assessed 28 facilities. There was a significant decrease in average outpatient department total attendances from (M=5,529, SD=6541.2) before compared to (M=3576, SD=4345.6) during COVID-19 pandemic (P=0.0031). Similarly, the average number screened for TB significantly decreased from (M=2822, SD=5409.2) to (M=1300, SD=2525.5) P=0.040 and ANC 1 st contacts from (M=200 SD=207.8) before to (M=137, SD=133.3) during COVID-19 pandemic p = 0.015. Conclusion: A significant number of the population may not have readily accessed healthcare services during the pandemic especially those with long term illnesses like TB and HIV. We developed Information, Education and Communication materials and conducted a catch-up campaign for TB. Awareness creation among service providers on reduced intake of HIV and MCH services during COVID-pandemic is needed for enhancement of community education.