Leprosy Mailing List – October 27th, 2007
Ref.: Neglected diseases
From: Ganapati R., Mumbai,
India
Dear Dr Noto,
Mr Osahon (LML 23 October,
2007) has very vividly portrayed the scenario of Leprosy, the
“neglected disease” in Nigeria.
The situation is even worse in the vast country of India.
It is a paradox that those
who were accountable to manage all leprosy related problems (not just
to bring down the prevalence rate) ignored the clinical problems now
call it a neglected disease! Who
neglected and why? One cannot escape facing the reality of the
situation by calling it a neglected disease. Visible disabilities due to
leprosy have pooled to an abnormal extent of 1.5 million in
India (probably an underestimate) and this is due to the cumulative
neglect of an entirely preventable complication of leprosy by the
program managers.
Those who themselves
neglected one important aspect of the disease over the years are
coming out with a new terminology of “neglected disease”. Coining such new terms is not
going to benefit the huge number of patients in the endemic countries
like India, Brazil and Nigeria. Action
at the mass level is called for.
Regards,
R Ganapati,
Bombay Leprosy Project
