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Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau (AIFO) |
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Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau (AIFO) |
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Patron Saint for Human Rights
According to the latest data available from World Health Organisation, a total of 258,133 new cases of leprosy were detected in 2007. About 67% of these new cases of leprosy were from South-east Asia where leprosy continues to be an important health issue in countries like India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Another 16% of the new cases of leprosy were from South America, especially from Brazil. The graph shows the distribution of new cases of leprosy from different world regions in 2007.
Improvement in new cases of leprosy over the past twenty years: Over the past two decades, lots of progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of new cases of leprosy. If we look at the situation of leprosy 20 years ago, in 1989 there were 548,108 new cases of leprosy. Around 1999-2001, the number of new cases per year had increased to about 700,000 persons, because of increased coverage of leprosy control programmes. Since then the number of new cases has been slowly decreasing. Thus, the number of new cases per year has been reduced by more than 50%. Lot of credit for this success goes to strengthening of national leprosy programmes in almost all countries where leprosy was endemic with emphasis on early diagnosis of the disease and prompt treatment with a combination of medicines called Multi-Drug Therapy or the MDT. The following graph shows the reduction in the number of new cases of leprosy between 1985 to 2007.
Other challenges of leprosy: Treatment of the leprosy infection is a significant success. However, persons affected with leprosy face other challenges that require more commitment and support.
Social stigma and discrimination in the
families and in the communities is a serious issue, that often
Leprosy affects the nerves of the body and leads to disabilities that require life long care. It is estimated that about 2 million persons live with leprosy related disabilities in the world. Often, people think that person with leprosy related disability has still has leprosy infection and thus, often such persons face more stigma and discrimination. Leprosy is also linked with poverty. The pre-existing poverty is often worsened by loss of job, stigma and discrimination. Thus persons affected with leprosy face social and economic difficulties. For facing these challenges, the interventions at community level include community awareness campaigns, teaching self-care for prevention of disabilities, medical rehabilitation activities including reconstructive surgery and supply of protective footwear, and socio-economic rehabilitation activities. Countries most affected by leprosy today: 15 countries in the world have more than 1,000 new cases of leprosy every year and together they contain about 93% of all the new cases of leprosy in the world. These countries, placed in alphabetical order, are as follows:
You can see from the above table that India has the highest number of new cases of leprosy in the world, though over the past few years, it has shown important reductions in the new case detection. You can find more reports & learning materials on leprosy at the AIFO website under the online resources. If you need any specific information, send an email to sunil.deepak (at) aifo.it
Prepared by Dr Sunil Deepak, AIFO, Medical & Scietific support Department, June 2009 |
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AIFO, Via
Borselli 4-6, 40135 Bologna, Italy
Tel: +390-51-4393.211 Fax: +390-51-434046 Email: info@aifo.it
continues
to affect persons who have completed MDT treatment and are completely
cured. Over the past decades, about 15 million persons have been
cured of leprosy, thousands of them face social stigma, which may
take away their jobs and force their children out of the schools.
Changing community perceptions that today leprosy is a disease like
other diseases that can be easily cured with medicines, is a big
challenge. (In the picture, Pope John Paul II with persons affected with
leprosy in Cumura leprosy hospital in Guinea Bissau on the World Leprosy
day in January 1990)