World Leprosy Day is annually observed around the world on the last Sunday of January.
The day was initiated in 1954 by French philanthropist and writer, Raoul Follereau, as a way to raise global awareness of this deadly ancient disease and call attention to the fact that it can be prevented, treated and cured.
Leprosy is one of the oldest diseases known to humankind. It is also known as Hansen’s disease, named after Norwegian physician, Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen, who debunked the prevailing notion of the time that leprosy was a hereditary disease. He showed that the disease had a bacterial cause instead. For thousands of years, people with leprosy have been stigmatized and considered to be at the extreme margins of the society.
The aim of World Leprosy Day is to change this attitude and increase public awareness of the fact that leprosy can now be easily prevented and cured.
Initially, infections are without symptoms and typically remain static for 5 to 20 years. Symptoms that develop include granulomas of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes.
This can also result in lack of ability to feel pain and thus loss of parts of extremities due to repeated injuries or infection due to unnoticed wounds.
Why we need to step up the fight against this health issue?
Leprosy is spread between people.This is thought to occur through a cough or contact with fluid from the nose of an infected person.
Prevention
Leprosy is endemic in several regions of the world. Currently the only protection has come from vaccination with BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin), a single dose of which gives 50 percent or higher protection against the disease.
BCG is a component of the Expanded Program on Immunization and confers some degree of protection against tuberculosis, which is caused by a mycobacterium allied to M. leprae.
India’s fight against leprosy
The World Health Organisation(WHO) directed South-East Asian countries, including India which accounted for 60% per cent of such cases worldwide in 2015, to focus on preventing disabilities in children.
According to WHO, leprosy affected 2,12,000 people all over the globe in 2015. India alone reported 1,27,326 new cases, accounting for 60% of new cases globally.
India is among the 22 countries considered as having a “high burden for leprosy” along with high transmission by WHO. “Despite being eliminated globally as a public health problem in 2000, leprosy continues to mar the lives of individuals, and impacts families and communities.
Though present numbers are a fraction of what was reported a decade ago, they are unacceptable, as an effective treatment for leprosy — multidrug therapy, or MDT — has been available since the 1980s and can fully cure leprosy,
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