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World Leprosy Day is January 25th, 2009
January 23, 2009
PRESS RELEASE 01/25/2009 | For Immediate Release
JANUARY 25th IS WORLD LEPROSY DAY 2009
56th Annual Day for Awareness and Preventionby Arjumand Thompson
Dear Subscribers -
Leprosy, an infectious tropical disease caused by Mycobacteriium leprae, afflicts hundreds of thousands globally every year. Spread by person-to-person contact, leprosy causes disfiguring skin lesions, debilitating damage to the nerves, deformity of the limbs and disproportionately affects countries in the developing world. Fortunately, leprosy is not highly contagious and is curable. Simple, cost-effective interventions for prevention and treatment are readily available.
Efforts to completely eliminate this ancient disease as a worldwide public health problem have been very encouraging. The early part of this decade saw the global prevalence rate of leprosy drop to less than 1 per 10,000 and reported cases worldwide fell from 5.4 million to 460,000. Significant reduction in the disease burden of leprosy can be attributed to improved control strategies of case detection, rehabilitation, and drug treatment. Multidrug therapy (MDT) is a proven, safe and cost-effective intervention that is distributed freely by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Unfortunately, the good news is overshadowed by the fact that, since 2004, an average of 300,000 new cases of leprosy have been reported annually, with the greatest burden of disease being found in South Asia, - more than 75% percent of which are in India - South America, and East Africa. The numbers of such new cases are gradually declining in much of the world, but their continual reappearance in leprosy-endemic countries makes total elimination efforts a challenge.
Underreporting of symptoms and treatment-avoidance due to the stigma and social discrimination that still surrounds this disease has helped to fuel this resurgence in a few regions of the world.
Read more about leprosy and other tropical disease control programs:
In His Own Words: India Showcases DCPP Successes By Rajiv Misra
Images courtesy of:
Leprosy: (c) 1994 TLMI, Courtesy of WHO/TDR/TLMI
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Arjumand Thompson is a Program Associate with the Disease Control Priorities Project.
PRESS CONTACT
Arjumand Thompson
+1 (202) 939-5486
athompson@prb.org
PRESS KIT
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