Leprosy mailing list – January 12^th, 2005

Ccn:     all.
Ref.:     African Leprosy Congress and “vogues”.

From:  S Noto , Caltanissetta , Italy .

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Dear Dr Noordeen,

 

Thank you for you message (lml Jan. 11^th, 2005) and for the reasons you gave. However they do not alter the facts. These are clear and are as follows:

1.  wrong indicator: prevalence;
2.  wrong word: elimination;
3. inexplicable benchmark: below one in then thousands.

They imply that colleagues at the African leprosy congress are going to discuss about important matters with wrong names and concepts. This is an unfortunate situation. Unless, you were able to explain why:

1. is prevalence the right indicator?
2. is elimination the right word?
3. is below one in then thousands an explicable benchmark?

  Best regards,

 

S. Noto

 

 

 

NB

<< “Talking about WHO Expert Committees on Leprosy the most recent Seventh Expert Committee on Leprosy had this to say as its first recommendation: "The Global Strategy for the Elimination of Leprosy, based on implementation of MDT with case-finding, is proving to be extremely successful in reducing the prevalence of leprosy and should be continued" (WHO Expert Committee on Leprosy- Seventh Report 1998 page 37). >>

This means that what is important is: (early) case-finding and treatment of the patients!