Leprosy
Mailing List, December 29th, 2008
Ref.: Park's Textbook of
Preventive and Social Medicine-19th Edition, 2007
From: Vijayakumaran
P,
Chennai
,
India
Dear Mr Bhanot,
Leprosy
is the only disease where large scale disease control measures have
been very successful in reducing the burden though many aspects
regarding the disease and M leprae are still remaining unclear. Expertise in leprosy (Medical
and para-medical professionals) is becoming less as a result. Governments are relying on
general health care system and Private Medical Practitioners for
extending quality care to leprosy affected persons.
National
disease control programmes have put in lots of effort to demystify
fears and instil confidence not only among the public but also among
the medical professionals. Many laws related to leprosy affected
persons framed during pre-dapsone era are being repealed.
Professionals
working in the field of leprosy in many parts of the world are still
struggling to offer good quality services to leprosy affected persons.
One would expect that a
reputed medical text book as yours must aim at improving knowledge
about the disease with right facts and help eliminate a problem. The amazing references in your
text book are totally baseless. Hence this is disturbing and may
even discourage medical professionals to join the task of eliminating
the leprosy problem.
I
strongly suggest that relevant (or rather irrelevant) parts of the
text may be removed or modified.
Dr.
P. Vijayakumaran,
Director
(Prog), DFIT
Damien Foundation
India
Trust,
14, Venugopal Avenue, Spurtank Road, Chetpet,
Chennai 600 03,
India
