Number of leprosy patients declines

JAKARTA: Indonesia has succeeded in reducing the number of leprosy patients from more than 100,000 in 1990 to 20,000 in 2000, Minister of Health and Social Welfare Achmad Sujudi said.

After attending a meeting on leprosy eradication with World Health Organization (WHO) representatives here on Saturday, he said the ratio of lepers in the country last year was one out of every 10,000 people.

In an effort to combat leprosy, the patients are required to remain on their medication for a certain period of time, from six months to a year depending on the type of leprosy they have, he said.

Sujudi said the government also agreed to work with WHO's representative office in Jakarta and NLR, a non-governmental organization from the Netherlands, to fight leprosy in the country.

Under the agreement, which runs until 2003, Indonesia will receive technical and financial aid from WHO and NLR amounting to US$1.8 million, he said.

Like tuberculosis, leprosy can only be cured if each patient takes their medicine throughout the recovery process, he added.

Sixty-six percent of the country's lepers live in Maluku, North Maluku, East Java, West Java, Central Java and South Sulawesi.

WHO said Indonesia has the fourth largest number of lepers in the world after India, Brazil and Myanmar.