The state of Kerala

NEW DELHI: We had put up a post about leprosy re-emerging in Kerala, on our Facebook page (http://bit.ly/2F7UEQk). The post talks about Kerala Government’s Aswamedham Leprosy Case Detection Campaign in eight districts of the state, namely, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Kasargod districts to detect hidden cases of leprosy, as it was found leprosy was on the rise in the state – Kerala has been a low endemic state for leprosy as the prevalence rate was low and detection of new cases very few in the last couple of years.

To quote a report that appeared in The Hindu, two days back (January 3), “As many as 135 more leprosy cases were found in the survey, 14 of which were among children. Six persons were found to have developed deformities too. Till October this year, 273 people, including 21 children, were diagnosed with the disease. Between 70% and 75% of them were multi-bacillary cases that need prolonged treatment.” The report also says more people were found to have developed deformities (due to late detection of the cases).

To address the growing menace of leprosy, the Kerala Health Department has proposed to extend the Aswamedham Leprosy Case Detection Campaign to more districts to ensure screening of all probable cases and their treatment on time to control the spread of the disease and save patients from disability.

To know more, read the news article here:  http://bit.ly/2s7WtUQ