The Health Department has proposed to extend the Aswamedham leprosy case detection campaign to more districts to ensure screening of all probable cases and their treatment on time.
This follows the findings of a two-week intensive survey in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Palakkad, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Kannur and Kasaragod districts where more people were found to have developed deformities due to leprosy.
J. Padmalatha, State Leprosy Officer, told The Hindu on Thursday that though the number of people with deformities was comparatively low in the other six districts, cases had been reported from there too. It should be examined if there were undetected cases, as many patients were still suspected to have not sought treatment on time.
As many as 135 more leprosy cases were found in the survey, 14 of which were among children. Six persons were found to have developed deformities too. Till October this year, 273 people, including 21 children, were diagnosed with the disease. Between 70% and 75% of them were multi-bacillary cases that need prolonged treatment.
Though Kerala has been a low endemic State for leprosy as the prevalence rate was low and detection of new cases very few here in the past couple of years, there has been a spike in child leprosy cases from 6.9% in 2015-16 to 9.42% in 2017-18.
Dr. Padmalatha said that children were more susceptible to leprosy as their immunity was low. The presence of the disease among children was also an indication that there was transmission and it could be prevalent among others too. Ever since the declaration of elimination of leprosy from the country in 2005, household surveys to detect the disease were discontinued. Owing to lack of awareness about the symptoms of the disease, many patients were found to approach doctors only after their condition worsened, another Health Department official said.