Most leprosy patients clueless about disease, says state govt
Andheri (West) has maximum new cases; patients dismiss it as temporary lesions
MUMBAI:ARVIND Yadav, a 27-yearold rickshaw driver, lives in a slum in Andheri (West). He has sores on his chest, back and hands that he’s been ignoring. “They are not painful and don’t affect my day to day work,” said Yadav. However, a door-to-door survey to detect leprosy patients – conducted by the state health department between September 24 and October 11 this year – identified those sores as symptoms of an infectious strain of leprosy.
Yadav’s is one of the 41 hidden leprosy cases found during the state’s survey and one of five people with nodular leprosy. Dr Raju Jotkar, assistant director of the state’s health services, said of these patients, “They are migratory labour who moved to Mumbai to make a living. But many are living in appalling living conditions.”
Now undergoing treatment, Yadav, who moved from Yavatmal to Mumbai’s Anandnagar five years ago, said that in all this time, no health worker had checked for leprosy cases in the slum. “People routinely come looking for polio cases and sometimes even for TB cases,” said Yadav. It doesn’t help that his home, which gets no sunlight, offers ideal conditions for the bacteria responsible for leprosy to flourish.
“I know TB spreads among people if patients cough without covering their mouths, but I don’t know how leprosy spreads,” he said. Both TB and leprosy are airborne infections with similar transmission routes (either coughing or sneezing). Within four months, Yadav’s leprosy should become non-infectious.
Most patients detected with leprosy didn’t know about the disease, said health workers who conducted the survey.
“People dismiss it as a temporary lesion and hadn’t availed medical attention for it,” said Austin Buthello, a paramedic with Vimala Dermatological Centre, a non-governmental organisation which conducted the survey in Andheri (West) at the behest of the state government. The highest numbers of cases were found in this neighbourhood.
OF THE 5,004 NEW LEPROSY CASES DETECTED IN MAHARASHTRA LAST YEAR
Dr Waman Bhatki, former superintendent of Acworth Leprosy Hospital, said leprosy doesn’t get enough attention. “Leprosy doesn’t lead to mortalities
like TB and HIV. Moreover, the numbers of leprosy cases have reduced drastically over the last two decades.”
There were 80,000 patients in Mumbai about 30 years ago, said
WARD-WISE LEPROSY CASES IN MUMBAI
were grade 1 disabilities (deformities not visible to naked eye)
were grade 2 disabilities (deformity clearly visible to the eye)
cases were found in children
Dr Bhatki, but the number has now reduced to a few hundred.
According to Dr Padmaja Keskar, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s executive health officer, the door-to-door survey
conducted in the city also aimed at increasing awareness of leprosy. “Anyone with a non- itchy and non-painful body patch must approach the dispensary for a correct diagnosis,” she said.