Leprosy Prevention and Control Week
Pursuant to Presidential Proclamation 467, the third week of February of every year has been declared as Leprosy Prevention and Control Week. The observance aims to deepen public awareness on the disease, its prevention, and treatment.
According to medical sources, Leprosy (also called Hansen’s Disease, after the scientist who discovered M. leprae in 1873) is an infectious disease characterized by disfiguring skin lesions, peripheral nerve damage, and progressive debilitation. It is common in countries with tropical and subtropical climates.
What are leprosy early symptoms and signs?
Unfortunately, the early signs and symptoms of leprosy are very subtle and occur slowly (usually over the years). The symptoms are similar to those that may occur with syphilis, tetanus, and leptospirosis. The following are the major signs and symptoms of leprosy:
- Numbness (among the first symptoms)
- Loss of temperature sensation (among the first symptoms)
- Touch sensation reduced (among the first symptoms)
- Pins and needles sensations (among the first symptoms)
- Pain (joints)
- Deep pressure sensations are decreased or lost
- Nerve injury
- Weight loss
- Blisters and/or rashes
- Ulcers, relatively painless
- Skin lesions of hypo pigmented macules (flat, pale areas of skin that lost color)
- Eye damage (dryness, reduced blinking)
- Large ulcerations (later symptoms and signs)
- Hair loss (for example, loss of eyebrows)
- Loss of digits (later symptoms and signs)
- Facial disfigurement (for example, loss of nose) (later symptoms and signs)
- Erythema nodosum leprosum: tender skin nodules accompanied by other symptoms like fever, joint pain, neuritis, and edema
This long-term developing sequence of events begins and continues on the cooler areas of the body (for example, hands, feet, face, and knees).
Is leprosy contagious?
Medical researchers speculate that infected droplets reach other peoples' nasal passages and begin the infection there. Some investigators suggest the infected droplets can infect others by entering breaks in the skin. M. leprae apparently cannot infect intact skin.
What is the treatment?
Antibiotics treat the majority of cases (mainly clinically diagnosed) of leprosy. The recommended antibiotics, their dosages, and length of time of administration are based on the form or classification of the disease and whether or not the patient is under medical supervision.
Medical professionals have used steroid medications to minimize pain and acute inflammation with leprosy; however, controlled trials showed no significant long-term effects on nerve damage.
Doctors have individualize surgery for each patient with the goal to attempt cosmetic improvements and, if possible, to restore limb function and some neural functions that were lost to the disease.
Is prevention possible?
Prevention of contact with droplets from nasal and other secretions from patients with untreated M. leprae infection is currently the most effective way to avoid the disease. Treatment of patients with appropriate antibiotics stops the person from spreading the disease. People who live with individuals who have untreated leprosy are about eight times as likely to develop the disease, because family members have close proximity to infectious droplets. Leprosy is not hereditary, but recent findings suggest susceptibility to the disease may have a genetic basis.Many people have exposures to leprosy throughout the world, but the disease in not highly contagious.
The prognosis of leprosy varies with the stage of the disease when medical professionals diagnose and treat it. Early diagnosis and treatment limits or prevents tissue damage so the person has a good outcome. However, if the patient's infection has progressed to more advanced disease, the complications can affect the patient's lifestyle, and thus the condition has a fair to poor prognosis.
Source: https://www.medicinenet.com/leprosy/article.htm#what_are_leprosy_early_symptoms_and_signs
https://dilg.gov.ph/events/Leprosy-Prevention-and-Control-Week/549
