Prevalence of Culture-Confirmed Pulmonary Tuberculosis Requiring ICU Admission and the Trend in Prevalence Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Tertiary Academic Medical Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: A 7-Year Retrospective Cohort Study.

This article focuses on the prevalence and trends of culture-confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) requiring intensive care unit (ICU) admission in a Malaysian tertiary academic medical center from 2015 to 2021. The study found an overall low prevalence of 8.0% among all culture-confirmed PTB patients, with a significant increasing trend over the seven-year period, peaking in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rise in ICU admissions for PTB may be linked to disruptions in TB services caused by pandemic-related lockdowns and healthcare resource shifts, rather than direct COVID-19 co-infection. These findings underscore the importance of maintaining TB healthcare services during public health emergencies to manage severe PTB cases effectively, especially in resource-limited settings like Malaysia.