With any hope, the number of leprosy cases will be seeing a worldwide decline. An international summit of health ministers gathered in Bangkok Wednesday to discuss methods of reducing the more than 1,000 new infections annually that are affecting 18 countries worldwide.
The three-day summit was created to help address issues that countries are facing with leprosy and develop a system to take down the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) alongside Japan’s Nippon Foundation set Bandladesh’s health minister AFM Ruhual Haque to open the summit. Bangladesh has controlled the spread of the disease since 1998.
WHO has determined that an acceptable rate of infection is 1-in-10,000. This affords Bangladesh 5,000 new infections annually. However, until 2011 a discriminatory act allowed forcible confinement of leprosy patients in the Southern Asian country.
The Nippon Foundation pledged a $20 million donation over the next 5 years to fight the disease. They hope to bring numbers to 1-in-1 million new infections by 2020.
The minister urged all countries to devise ‘new strategies’ to fight the disease. “We have to scrap traditional systems to eradicate the disease,” he told the crowd.
Due to the rising number of new infections, participants of the summit issued a declaration calling for more efforts to overcome remaining challenges. WHO Goodwill Ambassador, Yohei Sasakawa, told participates to “reaffirm your strong determination to achieve a leprosy-free world”.
A breakthrough for treating leprosy cases occurred in the 1980’s when the use of multidrug therapy (MDT) was introduced.
Story: bdnews24
