Leprosy
Mailing List – November 11th, 2009
Ref.: Indian
Journal of Leprosy and cure of leprosy
From:
S.
Deepak,
Bologna
,
Italy
Dear
Salvatore,
While
going through the new issue of Indian Journal of Leprosy
(January-March 2009) I saw the web-address and it was a pleasure to
discover that finally this journal is available on internet at the
following address:
http://www.ijl.org.in/index.html
The
archives of the journal from 2000 to 2008 are already available on the
website. Congratulations to all the persons, who made this possible
and I hope that with time, older archives of the journal will also be
made available.
In
this same issue of the journal I saw a report about a meeting held in
Orissa (
India
) in February 2009 about "Cure of leprosy". I
think that in term of role of the health services the discussions on
the cure of the disease focus almost exclusively on cure of the
infection by leprosy bacillus while probably it would be useful to
look at the issue of cure in the following terms:
(1)
Cure of bacterial infection;
(2)
Cure of the immunological disease processes caused by the infection -
that is cure of reactions;
(3)
Cure of the neurological disease processes resulting in disability
caused by the infection.
With
MDT, it seems that defining "cure" of bacterial infection is
sufficiently clear, as evident also from the above-mentioned report in
the journal. For majority
of the affected persons, probably cure of the immunological disease
processes can also be expected. However,
I think that like so many other diseases such as hypertension,
diabetes, the neurological disease processes would require lifelong
treatment and no cure can be expected.
This
is different from all other aspects such as stigma and discrimination,
that may not covered by health services.
I
can understand that vertical leprosy control programmes were focusing
only on cure from bacterial infection, but if treatment of leprosy is
part of primary health care, shouldn't cure be seen in all the
different aspects of care required by affected persons?
With
regards,
Sunil
Dr
Sunil Deepak
Medical
Advisor
AIFO,
Bologna, Italy
www.aifo.it/english/
