RI urged to fight leprosy in provinces
RI urged to fight leprosy in provinces
Tb. Arie Rukmantara, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
After successfully reducing the prevalence of leprosy in the
country, the Indonesian government and people should now
concentrate on eliminating the disease in several provinces, the
World Health Organization suggests.
WHO regional advisor for leprosy and other priority diseases
Derek Lobo said by the year 2000, Indonesia was among the 108
countries that had achieved the goal of reducing the national
prevalence rate, leaving only nine countries with a high
prevalence at present.
"We are now aiming to achieve the elimination at the sub-
national level: at the provincial and district levels," Lobo said
here on Thursday.
The criteria set by the WHO for a successful fight against
leprosy is a prevalence of less than one case per 10,000
population.
Lobo said there were 12 Indonesian provinces, mostly located
in the eastern part of the archipelago, that had failed to reach
the target so far.
Leprosy is a chronic disease caused by Mycrobacterium leprae
bacillus, which is transmitted via droplets, from the nose and
mouth during close and frequent contact with untreated cases.
Although it is not highly infectious and is curable using
multi-drug therapy (MDT), the disease can progressively and
permanently damage the skin, nerves, limbs and eyes, if
untreated.
Lobo said since the introduction of multi-drug treatment (MDT)
in the country about 20 years ago, more than 300 people have been
cured.
But in the last three to four years WHO has found about 15,000
to 16,000 new cases every year in Indonesia.
"We have every hope that Indonesia can achieve provincial
level elimination within the next one or two years and go further
to district elimination maybe by 2010," he said.
To support the goal, a senior WHO Indonesia official Firdosi
R. Mehta said the world body would hold a Leprosy Elimination
Monitoring (LEM) exercise to help regional administrations
identify problems in eliminating the disease.
"Most communicable diseases or syndromes, such as HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria, are mainly a problem in the eastern
part of Indonesia. Mostly this is related to inaccessibility to
health services and basically the health services are not as
developed as on Java," he said.
Visiting WHO Goodwill ambassador for leprosy elimination Yohei
Sasakawa stressed that aside from curing leprosy patients, there
should be efforts to erase discrimination against former leprosy
patients.
"Today leprosy is a curable disease. Anywhere in Indonesia
treatment is provided free of charge and therefore it is a big
mistake to discriminate against people or their family members
who are affected by leprosy," he said.
Sasakawa, who chairs the Nippon and Sasakawa Foundations that
have donated over $400 million to the global fight to eliminate
leprosy since 1974, said discrimination against lepers was
categorized as a human rights violation.
"They cannot be reintegrated or rehabilitated, they cannot
marry or cannot go to school," he said. "That is a serious human
rights violation."
The 56th United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights adopted last year a resolution
entitled: Discrimination against leprosy victims and their
families, to give more dignity to leprosy patients.
Sasakawa suggested that all members of the society help former
leprosy patients through education livelihood programs.
"People could start various programs such as micro credit, so
that former leprosy patients could start their own business and
provide scholarships for their children," he said.