Leprosy Mailing List – December 12, 2016
Ref.: (LML) Competent leprosy services
From: Jaison Barreto, Bauru, Brazil
Dear Pieter,
Thanks for the writings “competent leprosy services” by Joel Almeida of December 10, 2016.
What we have seen in the last 10 years in Brazil about leprosy:
Progressive destruction of reference centers, with more and more leprosy cases being misdiagnosed as rheumatism, allergy, mycosis and other diseases!
No more leprosy in-service-trainings for health professionals were stimulated by the last government. The international leprosy organizations went away from Brazil, causing a catastrophic condition as the physicians, who are in the field and stay in the same municipality for one year or less, do not receive training in leprosy anymore. At universities they learn almost nothing about leprosy. The material available in internet works only for those that were trained in service at least a little bit. Fear and prejudice is still high in our country.
I have been in the field many times in the past 10 years, training health professionals to suspect and diagnosing leprosy cases. I have trained as such more than 10,000 new professional, with funds from GLRA and Fontilles. Unfortunately, those ILEP members left our country. More than 1000 leprosy patients were diagnosed during these trainings. In areas were GLRA/Fontilles worked the detection did not fall, but the number of grade 2 disabilities found among new cases were extremely low compared to other areas not covered by this training program.
During the last government, professionals who worked in the field, like me, training other colleagues and finding several new cases, were put under pressure in Brazil, as leprosy elimination goal should be reached, even by lies and false statistics.
Thanks God that now we have a new government in Brazil, where our Ministry of Health and the new National Leprosy Coordination is trying to recover our country from the destruction of the National Leprosy Program left by the last government.
I am sure we will really eliminate leprosy, in decent time, not by statistical lies and with misdiagnosis, but by training all health professionals, finding all active leprosy cases and treating them, breaking transmission chain and doing the household contact follow up.
Regards,
Jaison
LML - S Deepak, B Naafs, S Noto and P Schreuder
LML blog link: http://leprosymailinglist.blogspot.it/
Contact: Dr Pieter Schreuder << editorlml@gmail.com
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