Leprosy Mailing List – May 13, 2018
Ref.: (LML) World Leprosy Day 2018: How forward respecting the past?
From: Ben Naafs, Munnekeburen, the Netherlands
Dear Pieter,
The Indian Journal of Medical Research invited me to write an editorial on the occasion of World Leprosy Day 2018. Beside feeling honoured and doubting my capability to do so, I felt it would give me the opportunity to voice my reflections on leprosy.
What I did not write is that we, as "leprologists", should consider whether it is reasonable to "treat" the 80% who cannot develop the disease, simply because they are leprosy contacts. It may be a waste of resources and exposes the "treated" to a potential risk. We need to find a way to detect the 20% who can, and then decrease the risk with a BCG-like vaccination.
A detection of the reprogramming of the host cell may give us this possibility (reprogramming and detection of the 20% explained in the article). Perhaps by presenting this to LML it may unleash a discussion on contact "treating", which, with the present knowledge, is one of the only ways in which we can achieve something good. This would then explain many of the questions which we have not been able to answer as today.
Ben
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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