HANSONS DISEASE AWARENESS MEETING @ St.John's Girls Higher Secondary School, Nazareth

 What is Leprosy?

Leprosy is an infectious disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms, legs, and skin areas around your body. Leprosy has been around since ancient times. Outbreaks have affected people on every continent.

But leprosy, also known as Hanson’s disease, isn’t that contagious. You can catch it only if you come into close and repeated contact with nose and mouth droplets from someone with untreated leprosy. Children are more likely to get leprosy than adults.

Today, about 208,000 people worldwide are infected with leprosy, according to the World Health Organization, most of them in Africa and Asia.

Leprosy Symptoms

·       Leprosy primarily affects your skin and nerves outside your brain and spinal cord, called the peripheral nerves. It may also strike your eyes and the thin tissue lining the inside of your nose.

·       The main symptom of leprosy is disfiguring skin sores, lumps, or bumps that don’t go away after several weeks or months. The skin sores are pale-colored.

Nerve damage can lead to:

·                 Loss of feeling in the arms and legs

·       Muscle weakness 

Leprosy Symptoms

·       Leprosy primarily affects your skin and nerves outside your brain and spinal cord, called the peripheral nerves. It may also strike your eyes and the thin tissue lining the inside of your nose.

·       The main symptom of leprosy is disfiguring skin sores, lumps, or bumps that don’t go away after several weeks or months. The skin sores are pale-colored.

Nerve damage can lead to:

• ·       Loss of feeling in the arms and legs
• ·       Muscle weakness

   It usually takes about 3 to 5 years for symptoms to appear after coming into contact with the bacteria that causes leprosy. Some people do not develop symptoms until 20 years later. The time between contact with the bacteria and the appearance of symptoms is called the incubation period. Leprosy's long incubation period makes it very difficult for doctors to determine when and where a person with leprosy got infected.

What Causes Leprosy?

Leprosy is caused by a slow-growing type of bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae). Leprosy is also known as Hansen's disease, after the scientist who discovered M. leprae in 1873.

It isn’t clear exactly how leprosy is transmitted. When a person with leprosy coughs or sneezes, they may spread droplets containing the M. leprae bacteria that another person breathes in. Close physical contact with an infected person is necessary to transmit leprosy. It isn’t spread by casual contact with an infected person, like shaking hands, hugging, or sitting next to them on a bus or at a table during a meal.

Leprosy Treatment

Leprosy can be cured. In the last 2 decades, 16 million people with leprosy have been cured. The World Health Organization provides free treatment for all people with leprosy.

Treatment depends on the type of leprosy that you have. Antibiotics are used to treat the infection. Doctors recommend long-term treatment, usually for 6 months to a year. If you have severe leprosy, you may need to take antibiotics longer. Antibiotics can’t treat the nerve damage that comes with leprosy.

Multidrug therapy (MDT) is a common treatment for leprosy that combines antibiotics. That means you’ll take two or more medications, often antibiotics:

Paucibacillary leprosy: You’ll take two antibiotics, such as dapsone each day and rifampicin once a month.

Multibacillary leprosy: You’ll take a daily dose of the antibiotic clofazimine in addition to the daily dapsone and monthly rifampicin. You’ll take multidrug therapy for 1-2 years, and then you’ll be cured.