Leprosy

Leprosy

I was shocked reading your article (Thursday, The Jakarta
Post, April 27, 1995) about leprosy drugs and the immunity
leprosy bacilli have developed to these drugs. I do not know
Prof. Adhi Djuanda, but I do hope that the article does not
reflect his opinion about this issue. It is certainly true that
leprosy bacilli are getting more resistant to DDS and there are a
few reports of resistance to one of the other drugs as well, but
so far no resistance has been reported to all three drugs
currently used together.

The threat of developing immunity was the reason WHO in the
early 1980s advised to treat leprosy with three drugs instead of
DDS alone, and this treatment is used in Indonesia, at least in
the government program. At present, taking the prescribed dosages
of these drugs over the advised period of time assures the
patient that he or she will become fully free of the disease. The
risk of the disease recurring years after a full course of the
drugs is small, as was pointed out again recently in an editorial
in Leprosy Review. The present combination of these three drugs
is far more powerful than the previous therapy of DDS alone.

Besides the present three drugs, there are other drugs
currently being tested, and these tests show promising results.
All this does not guarantee that in the future the gloomy picture
described in the article will not become true, but at present it
certainly is not! The best way to prevent such a thing from
happening is to make sure that all leprosy patients get their
full treatment on a regular basis, and this depends to a great
extent on how the community looks at leprosy patients, therefore
I fully support that part of the article.

DR. F.J. MOET

The Leprosy Mission

International

Jakarta