226 chapter 26
LEPROSY AND THE COMMUNITY
Historically, there has been a lot of fear and misunderstanding about leprosy.
Persons with leprosy have often been thrown out of towns or treated with cruelty.
Until recently, governments took persons with leprosy away from their families and
locked them up in special institutions or ‘leprosaria’. All this added to people’s fears.
Today, leprosy can be cured—without any deformities or disabilities if treatment is
begun early. It can be treated in the home. The person can continue going to school or
to work. Having leprosy need not disable the person physically or socially.
But in many communities fear and misunderstanding remain. Persons still refuse to
admit—even to themselves—the early signs of leprosy. They delay in getting treatment
until permanent deformities appear. The disease continues to be spread to others by
those who are not yet treated. And so the myth and the fear of leprosy are kept alive.
To correct this situation will require the efforts of all health and rehabilitation workers,
schoolteachers, religious and community leaders, families of persons with leprosy, and
organizations of the disabled. These steps are needed:
1. Information and Education Schools, health centers, comics, radio, and television
can be used to help educate the community about leprosy. Information should:
• try to lessen the fears people have about leprosy and let them know it is curable.
• stress the importance of early diagnosis and treatment.
• tell people how to recognize early signs and where to get treated.
• include popular stories of persons who think they might have leprosy, decide to
get help, and are cured.
2. Integration of leprosy programs into genera! health
care. Too often leprosy control is done as a separate
program. It is important that people (and health
workers) begin to see leprosy as ‘just another
serious health problem’— like diarrhea in children.
3. Regular screening (mass checkups) of children for
skin patches and other early signs of leprosy. This
can be part of a ‘CHILD-to-child’ program (see
Chapter 47) in which school children learn first to
examine each other, and then their younger brothers
and sisters. A ‘CHILD-to-child Activity Sheet
on Leprosy’ is available from TALC.
(See p. 427.)
Screening school children for leprosy,
India. (Photo, The Leprosy Mission.)
4. C ommunity pressure and government orders to let children being treated for leprosy
attend school, find work, attend festivals, and take part in public functions.
(Organizations of disabled persons can help make this happen.)
5. S elf-help and community groups of people affected by leprosy can raise awareness in
the community and increase acceptance, care and respect. They can also organize to get
medicines and treatment, and educate to prevent deformity. Where needed, community
groups can advocate to get the schooling, health care, work, and social rights that persons
with leprosy deserve.
The example of a health worker who welcomes persons with leprosy and is not afraid to
touch them can do much to calm needless fears and encourage acceptance.
Disabled village Children