Detection of leprosy cases drops amid pandemic, orders dry up for factory making shoes for patients

The MCR footwear is a boon to leprosy patients, who are highly vulnerable to cuts, ulcers and injuries due to nerve damage. This footwear helps those afflicted with leprosy to walk comfortably and without fear of possible injuries.

“In normal shoes, a person walks on their toes and heels, it doesn’t provide support to the arch of the feet. The rubber sheets used in MCR shoes are made of air bubbles that help to equalise the balance of the feet while walking,” said Joy Mancherli from Alert India, which is one of the biggest manufacturers of MCR footwear for leprosy patients in India. The unit in Vikhroli was established in 2006, as an extension of the shoe unit stationed at Acworth Municipal Hospital for Leprosy in Wadala, for its in-house patients.

Every year, they supply around 20,000 pairs of MCR sandals for leprosy patients across India including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, North Eastern regions. Most of the orders are being placed by the state governments. Sandals are being supplied for Rs 400 on a no-profit no-loss basis.

But in the last two years, due to the decline in detection of leprosy cases and footfall of patients in hospitals amid the pandemic, the annual demand for the sandals has dropped by 50 per cent to 10,000. The hardest-hit due to this drop in production are the workers like 45-year-old Pandurang Ahire, who are now facing salary cuts to ensure that the unit survives. Ahire, who was diagnosed with leprosy when he was 17, has been working at the unit since 2006.
“Pre-Covid we used to get Rs20,000 per month but due to a drop in demand, we are getting Rs 16,000,” said Ahire.

The Covid-19 pandemic that overwhelmed the country’s health care system had also put in a spanner in the detection of new leprosy cases in the country. A pan-India study conducted by an organisation — The Leprosy Mission Trust India, Delhi found out that the active case finding activities have been suspended in most states since April 2020.

In four states — Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh — detection of new cases fell by 62.5 per cent between April and September 2020, compared to the corresponding period in previous years. In 2019, these four states accounted for 35per cent of the total new cases reported in the country. These states reported 22,000 new leprosy cases during April-September 2019 but only 8,270 for the same period in 2020. The report will be released on Sunday.

Due to this, organisations like Alert India in India are also reporting a drastic drop in the demands of such specialised shoes. John Kurian George from Fairmed India, Gurgaon, which works for the rehabilitation of people affected by leprosy said, “As patients couldn’t visit the hospitals to get the shoes, the demand plunged.”

The state government provides two pairs of footwear annually to each leprosy-affected patient. During the pandemic, many patients are left with no option but to buy normal rubber shoes from the market. For instance, 56-year-old leprosy recovered patient from Amravati couldn’t travel to the district hospital to get the MCR shoe amid the pandemic. So, for the last 15 months, he was using a local rubber sandal to walk but often sustained injuries while farming.

In Maharashtra too, the detection of active Covid-19 cases was hampered due to Covid. In 2019-20, a total of 16,531 new cases were detected, which dropped to 12,438 in 2020-21. Between April-December 2021, 8,358 new patients have been detected in Maharashtra. The annual new case detection dropped from 13.07 per cent in 2019-20 to 9.55 per cent in 2020-21.

The state has now decided to rely on a door-to-door outreach programme to detect new cases that may have been missed when during the pandemic.

“Due to the lockdown and travel restrictions, many patients couldn’t visit hospitals so there has been a drop in detection…,” said Dr Ramji Adkekar, state in-charge of the National Leprosy Eradication Programme.