Leprosy Today

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Today, according to the World Health Organization, access to information, diagnosis, and treatment with multi drug therapy (MDT) are the key elements in the fight against leprosy as a public health problem. The MDT involves treatment with a combination of rifampicin, clofazimine, and dapsone for multibacillary leprosy and rifampicin and dapsone for paucibacillary leprosy patients. While rifampicin is the most important antileprosy drug, treatment must include with only one antileprosy drug always results in the development of drug resistance to that drug, and is therefore viewed today as an unethical practice.

As of 2002, over 700,000 new cases of leprosy were detected worldwide, 90% of those cases occurring in Brazil, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Nepal. These countries share a high rate of poverty as well as growing impoverished urban populations, conditions which are favorable to the disease. The WHO finds the implication of their key elements most important in these marginalized, impoverished communities, who they find most at risk from leprosy, and reports that these specific countries remain committed to eradication of the disease and continue their push for leprosy control.

From 2004 to 2005 the number of new cases of leprosy detected on a worldwide scale experienced a 27% decrease. This follows a continuing trend in recent years of decrease in the instance of new leprosy cases by roughly 20% a year throughout the world. Recent WHO efforts have pushed for the complete eradication of the disease in their “final push” strategy. Key steps in the implication of this strategy include an expansion in MDT services to all health facilities, ensuring that all those with existing cases of leprosy are given appropriate MDT treatments, encouragement of patients to participate in these treatments, and promotion of awareness in the community on leprosy so that individuals can recognize early signs of the disease and report suspicious lesions. The WHO has provided free MDT treatments to leprosy patients in all endemic countries since 1995.

The most important step in the push for control or complete eradication of leprosy is the implication of information campaigns about leprosy in high risk areas so that patients and their families are encouraged to come forward and receive treatment. According to the WHO’s policies today, the most effective way of preventing disabilities in leprosy, as well as preventing further transmission of the disease, lies in early diagnosis and treatment with MDT. In order to further this campaign, those involved must work to educate people about the causes of the disease, and trust that with further education will lead to a decrease in the stigma associated with the disease. The decreased stigma is very important to the elimination of the disease because the increased stigmatization of the disease leads to a decrease in those persons willing to come forward to seek treatment.

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