Health Desk

Health experts said the leprosy also known as Hansen’s disease can be cured if the infected person takes multi-drug therapy in line with the physicians’ suggestions as it appears to be an infectious disease.

“Leprosy can be cured now if the affected man or woman takes multi-drug therapy following the physicians’ suggestions,” experts said as they emphasised creating much awareness among the people and building a social movement without delay to build a leprosy-free healthy nation.

A Contact Cohorts Analysis (COCOA) study conducted in four districts of northwestern Bangladesh found that a person affected by leprosy who undergoes the correct treatment for leprosy, Multi Drug Therapy (MDT), will stop being infectious within 72 hours of starting treatment and, even before treatment, only a minority of those affected by leprosy are infectious.

Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae that can affect eyes, skin, mucous membranes and nerves, causing disfiguring sores and nerve damage, health experts said.

Three-year-old Shahela went through the suffering of leprosy. At first, she had a severe fever in June last. After two days, she was admitted to Chandanish Upazila Health Complex in Chattogram district. She was released from the health complex after getting treatment for two weeks. After that, she was found contracting leprosy.

According to WHO, leprosy is a chronic infectious disease that mainly affects the skin, peripheral nerves, mucosal surfaces of the upper respiratory tract and the eyes.

The COCOA study also found that leprosy can transmit from an infected person to another who shares the same home albeit to a lesser extent. The new findings during the Covid-19 pandemic will help global health experts in fighting to eliminate the disease by taking new action plans.

“People who share a home with a person affected by leprosy do have only a low risk of contracting the disease,” said the report that appeared on The Leprosy Mission International (TLMI) website recently.

Dr Cynthia Ruth Butlin of The Leprosy Mission England and Wales led the six-member research team that went through leprosy-related information over 20 years in Bangladesh. The report said that members who share the same hole are at higher risk of infection than other community members.

As the study provides new knowledge about the disease, TLMI is going to change its course of leprosy disease-related activities in Bangladesh. The practices in the country have already begun to change as MB houses receive regular follow-up calls from the case workers.

The regular follow-up calls mean that TLMI Bangladesh can diagnose and treat leprosy-infected people at an earlier stage than before, which reduces the chances of transmission within a household or community.

According to national leprosy control reports, the region has high leprosy prevalence as it had 4.57/10000 leprosy cases in 1995 and in 2017 it was 0.74/10000.

Health experts suggested educating people about the early signs and symptoms of leprosy and attempting to reduce any misconceptions or fear about the diagnosis.