Leprosy Training Module for Medical Officers

Integration
Why integration is essential ?
The core strategy for Leprosy elimination is :
1. To identify all Leprosy cases.
2. To cure them with MDT.
When we talk of the identification of all Leprosy cases, it is important to
recognise that in order to achieve Leprosy elimination, nearly every case in the
community should be identified. In practice, this does not happen in many
situations. The responsibility for identifying new cases of Leprosy was held solely
by specialised Leprosy services ( by vertical Leprosy staff ).
While this approach had certain advantages in certain situations, the major
disadvantage was relatively poor coverage of population resulting in large numbers
of patients remaining undetected. And hence, integration of specialised Leprosy
services into general health services becomes essential. We can reach even the
remotest areas of the state through the general health services only. It is necessary
to give importance to the role of individual, the family and the community in
suspecting Leprosy and reporting to the health services.
Now, major focus shifts to creating community awareness about the disease, its
curability and the availability of MDT services at all government health institutions
on all working days. To create awareness, we need to initiate a people’s movement
with full community involvement, which also includes social, religious and political
and institutions, such as panchayats, participations.
Unless and until community accepts its own responsibilities towards elimination
of Leprosy and works on it, it will not be possible to identify every case of
Leprosy.
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