COVID-19 and Pulmonary Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Coinfection

The Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak was classified as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. It is caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus affects mainly the human respiratory system. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) is another respiratory infection known to affect humans and may share joint clinical presentations and risk factors with COVID-19 infection. Therefore, clinicians must have a high index of suspicion that the two infections might coexist so that there is no delay in diagnosis and starting the appropriate treatment. There are few case reports about TB and COVID-19 coinfection. The first case report ever was from China and there have been a few others around the world. Here, we report two cases of coexisting COVID-19 and newly diagnosed pulmonary TB infection in Oman.