‘Most leprosy patients are from migrant families’

Major issue that came to the fore was the delay in detection of cases. Mycobacterium leprae, which causes leprosy, has incubation period of months or even years.

recent study to check the trends and transmission of leprosy among patients undergoing treatment in the city has revealed an 18% increase in the number of teenagers (under 15 years) contracting the disease in the last seven years. The study also pointed out that maximum amount of patients, both adult and children, belong to migrant families from Uttar Pradesh (37.5%) and Bihar (8%). The statistics indicate that there is a delay in detection of cases to avoid transmission in children, said authors of the study.

Spearheaded by Dr Thirumugam Muthuvel, scientist from German Leprosy and TB Relief Association, Chennai and his colleagues, the study observed 578 new leprosy patients registered at Andheri-based Vimala Dermatological Centre from 2008 to 2015.

“Against the backdrop of National Leprosy Eradication Programme and the number of new cases being detected throughout the country, we wanted to observe the transmission trend and to understand a better diagnostic approach in patients at a referral centre,” said Muthuvel.

Though the researchers pointed out that the study, being done at one centre has its own limitations and cannot be con sidered as an indicator of the national trend, the major issue that came to light was delay in detection of cases to avoid trans mission in children.

The researchers discovered that while male to female ratio in the patients was 60:30, with 10% of cases reported in children “Mostly men migrate to cities (38% from Uttar Pradesh and 33% from Maharashtra) in search of better employment and this could partly explain the higher proportion of males in our study,” the researchers men tioned in their paper.