At least 140 Pekalongan residents suffer from leprosy

Antara News, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 14:33 WIB

Pekalongan (ANTARA) - At least 140 residents of Pekalongan District, Central Java, suffered from leprosy according to data from January to November 2009.

"Leprosy, especially wet leprosy, is very contagious through direct physical contact," Suwondo of the Pekalongan health service, said here on Wednesday.

The number of leprosy patient increased from 138 cases in 2008 to 140 this year, he said.

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, an acid-fast, rod-shaped bacillus. The disease mainly affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, mucosa of the upper respiratory tract and also the eyes, apart from some other structures.

According to WHO (World Health Organization), leprosy has afflicted humanity since time immemorial. It once affected every continent and it has left behind a terrifying image in history and human memory - of mutilation, rejection and exclusion from society.

Access to information, diagnosis and treatment with multidrug therapy (MDT) remain key elements in the strategy to eliminate the disease as a public health problem, defined as reaching a prevalence of less than 1 leprosy case per 10,000 population.

MDT treatment has been made available by WHO free of charge to all patients worldwide since 1995, and provides a simple yet highly effective cure for all types of leprosy.

Based on WHO data, there were 254,525 cases of leprosy world-wide in 2007.

According to official reports received during 2008 from 118 countries and territories, the global registered prevalence of leprosy at the beginning of 2008 stood at 212,802 cases, while the number of new cases detected during 2007 was 254,525 (excluding the small number of cases in Europe). The number of new cases detected globally has fallen by 11,100 cases (a 4% decrease) during 2007 compared with 2006.