Millions of Disabled and Marginalised Leprosy Victims Urgently Need Help

Living with deformity

Leprosy patients are often confronted with a terrible fate if not treated: often loosing hands and feet and many suffer facial disfigurement. Other resultant deformities include paralysis of muscles and blindness.

Medical facts: Leprosy bacteria infect the skin and the nervous system. The resultant skin numbness can have major repercussions: those affected can injure or burn themselves without noticing it. Infections develop and eventually the feared deformations.

It was only a matter of decades ago that such an outcome was inevitable. Although an effective vaccine does not exist yet, Leprosy is currently curable with antibiotics. DAHW has been significantly involved in the development of multi-drug therapy which exists since 1981. This medicine is provided free of charge by the pharmaceuticals company Novartis. The treatment of one patient costs an average of 50 euros.

It is important to treat all patients as early as possible. If so, they will be spared from of severe disabilities and deformities.

A poverty disease

Leprosy is an illness of the poor. Malnutrition, cramped living conditions and inadequate hygiene are favourable conditions for infection with the bacteria. This explains why Leprosy is particularly prevalent in the slum areas of the „Third World“. India has the highest number of victims: in the year 2004 alone 265,000 were infected there. During the Middle Ages, there were also numerous cases of Leprosy in Germany.

Discriminated families

Doctors estimate that the number of people disabled as a result of Leprosy is between two and four million. The social and economic consequences of this not only affect the person suffering from Leprosy, but also their families. A disabled father living in the „Third World“ is no longer able to provide for his wife and his children. The whole family is threatened by impoverishment.

Moreover, Leprosy sufferers and their families are often excluded from society because the disease is still feared and stigmatised in many countries. Indeed, in India Leprosy is viewed as a punishment by the gods. Many persons affected still live in isolated Leprosy villages.

How DAHW helps

DAHW makes a substantial contribution to global Leprosy control. Yearly, almost a fifth of all new leprosy patients worldwide are treated in projects supported by us. We provide expertise, materials and money in 40 countries for this very purpose.

The training of State Health Staff is a particularly important aspect of our work. It is the only means of achieving full and complete treatment. We also inform the general public about Leprosy so that leprosy sufferers are not excluded from society and seek medical help in good time.

DAHW provides social support for stigmatised people: We help more than 60,000 people to help themselves so that they are able to make a living on their own and find a place within society again. For example, children are given education or vocational training. Adults are provided with low-interest loans, enabling them to establish small handicrafts or service businesses.

Plastic surgery for disfigured Leprosy victims is also an important part of our work. Reconstructive operations can often provide the disabled with a human face and restore the ability to move hands and feet again.

Thousands of patients who are disabled as a consequence of Leprosy are equipped with orthopaedic shoes and prostheses in DAHW projects. This is done by craftsmen who are trained and paid by us to produce appropriate prostheses or footwear.

Children can be protected against the consequences of Leprosy nowadays. Photo: DAHW

The WHO encourages long-term Leprosy work

Huge successes have been achieved in the fight against Leprosy. In many countries, the disease has been brought under control, and DAHW has been very active in this achievement.

However, in view of declining patients, there is a danger that Health Authorities could neglect their Leprosy work with the consequence that the disease could spread again.

As Leprosy has an incubation period of
several years, sometimes even decades, awareness of the dangers of the disease must be kept alive for a long time to come.

As the disease still has epidemic proportions in many places, for example in parts of India and Brazil, this even demands an increase of activities.

For this reason, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has also adopted a new perspective regarding Leprosy work.

For a long time they believed that Leprosy was under control to such an extent that it was no longer a significant task for health services in the „Third World“.

Now, WHO, together with DAHW and other relief organisations has urged the affected countries to maintain their leprosy work.

(Source: WHO and DAHW, estimates by the DAHW)

Development

Since a cure has been found for Leprosy, the total number of infected persons has diminished rapidly. However, the number of registered new infections and of disabled persons has scarcely changed. Leprosy remains a threat.