So from where does this Leprosy originate? Asia, Africa and Japan today wants to remove the "stigma" of being a Leper? Soon will we be told to embrace a Leper as we would a homosexual or lesbian and welcome them into our boy scouts, and Churches and swimming pools? Now maybe I seem heartless in this matter, but it is just that I consider a homosexual and a leper more dangerous than a loaded gun. A loaded gun you can lock up in a closet or safe - but today the UN and Japan in particular wants to loose the lepers upon the community. Now the bible has certain rules for lepers too; and believe me, leprosy and TB are both on the rise - in American suddenly TB is back.\ Americans worked long and hard to build a country which was to be safe, our shores were to be defended against the enemy - so it would seem the UN and Castro got their way at their secret meeting? Since this below article was written, Leprosy is said to be on the rise world wide and some of the cases reported in California, were Mexican in origin... But the trend is to take stigma away from Leprosy......are they kidding? Saba Leprosy looms as a public health threat, but LAC+USC clinic fights back by Jon Nalick Most people consider leprosy a scourge of Biblical times that only exists today, if anywhere, in third world countries with little access to modern medicines. But according to Thomas Rea, USC clinical professor of medicine, the disease remains a serious threat to public health worldwide, infecting more than half a million people each year, many of them in the United States. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is endemic to Texas, Louisiana and Hawaii as well as Mexico, the Caribbean, almost all of South America, Southern Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, and most of the islands in the Pacific, he says. India, Indonesia and Myanmar account for 70 percent of all the cases in the world. Rea, who directs the Hansen's Disease Clinic at LAC+USC Medical Center, says the clinic currently tracks more than 500 cases of leprosy, with about 30 new case registrations each year in Los Angeles. Norman Levan, a former chief of dermatology and a USC professor emeritus, started the clinic in 1962 at the request of state and federal health officials who noted that the new cases were coming in from Mexico and that the closest treatment clinic was in San Francisco. The USC clinic remains one of only three in California; the other two are located in San Diego and Contra Costra counties. "Even today, there's not a lot known about leprosy. We know it's caused by a bacterium, but the organisms have never been cultured. They grow only in intact animals," Rea says. "It's also impossible to prove what the mode of transmission or what level of exposure is required to transmit it." Mycobacterium leprae, which causes the disease, is the only bacterium known to attack the peripheral nerves. The symptoms of the illness include: spots on the skin which can range from a few tiny blotches to hundreds of bumps, pain, tingling, loss of feeling, inflammation, weakness, and a loss of muscle control. "If left untreated, the disease's progression can be quite serious. It's a common cause of blindness and outside the U.S. it's the leading cause of losing the use of your hands," he says. Within the U.S., arthritis is currently the most common cause of hand function loss. The disease typically strikes people in their 30s living in areas where leprosy is endemic. Men are twice as likely as women to contract the disease, but race is not a factor in susceptibility, Rea says. Generally, physicians throughout Southern California have a good awareness of the illness and are quick to recognize it. Still, because the disease is relatively rare here, there are times when patients go for as many as two years before receiving the correct diagnosis and beginning treatment at the clinic. Some people are naturally resistant to the illness and their bodies can destroy the infection without medical assistance. For those with no resistance, the illness ravages the skin and nerves and can cause crippling lesions and deformities. Most people, however, fall in the middle of the spectrum, where treatment with antibiotics not only can arrest the disease, but may cure it. Armauer G. Hansen discovered the bacterium that causes leprosy in 1873, and it was the first bacterium to be identified as causing disease in man. However, treatment for leprosy only appeared in the late 1940s with the introduction of the antibacterial drug dapsone, and its derivatives. Today, an effective multi-drug treatment includes dapsone, rifampin and clofazimine. Patients become unable to transmit the disease after taking only a few doses of medication so there is no need to quarantine them. Further, they can generally continue their normal work and other activities uninterrupted during treatment that may last several years. "You treat the illness with multiple [antibiotic] drugs along the lines of tuberculosis. Some [physicians] think multiple drug therapy is curative of the severe form of the disease, but that is just a projection and has not been proven. In my own opinion, it is a very optimistic projection," he says. The issue of whether to treat family members of people with leprosy simultaneously remains unsettled, although Rea says the conventional wisdom opposes the practice. The rationale is that prophylactic treatment would prevent few instances of the disease while exposing healthy people to powerful drug with potential side effects and increasing the chances that a resistant strain of the illness could develop. Rea says that even though the disease is treatable, the stigma attached to it remains. Often, people are fearful that they will be shunned if others discover their condition. "Most people are not very happy" when they hear the diagnosis, he says. "The common association is that people with leprosy are afflicted because they did something bad and they are dirty and unclean and you find out that you have it, maybe you believe that you are dirty and unclean." Levan emphasized that the disease is difficult to transmit and that patients need not avoid contact with others. In addition, he said that doctors should always shake hands with leprosy patients-especially on their initial visits-to reassure them that their illness does not exclude them from human interaction. Previous story Next story February 28 Issue Index HSC Public Relations page HSC Weekly index Last modified March 10, 1997 ���
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