TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Leprosy on the rise due to poor sanitation in West Java
The number of lepers has nearly doubled and the disease has spread to almost every regency and city in West Java over the past year, due to poor sanitation, a health official said Monday
Change Size
The number of lepers has nearly doubled and the disease has spread to almost every regency and city in West Java over the past year, due to poor sanitation, a health official said Monday.
West Java Health Office environmental health division head Wahyu Suryaputra said his office recorded 2,579 people suffering leprosy in 24 of 25 regencies and cities in 2007, compared to only 1,582 cases recorded in the previous year.
"Sanitation and environmental factors have added to the rising number of leprosy cases in West Java," Wahyu said in Bandung.
Based on data from the health office, only Cimahi city is free of the disease. Leprosy is caused by mycobacterium leprae bacillus mycobacterium, similar to that which causes tuberculosis, which has an incubation period of three to five years.
Leprosy is prevalent in Bogor, Bekasi, Sukabumi, Karawang, Subang, Indramayu and Cirebon regencies and Bekasi city, with each recording more than 200 cases. Bogor, Karawang and Indramayu are among the areas most affected, with 293, 285 and 274 cases, respectively. Banjar and Cianjur regencies have just five cases each.
"We must raise our awareness of environmental hygiene in order to curb the disease," Wahyu said.
Most lepers are underprivileged and live in densely populated areas which have poor sanitation.
They are usually ostracized by the community, so it becomes difficult for them to stop the disease. Most sufferers seek treatment only when their condition worsens, after they suffer physical deformity.
Early detection expedites cure, Wahyu said. Leprosy is characterized by symptoms resembling skin ailments, in which reddish spots appear on affected parts of the body.
The disease causes numbness and in acute cases causes permanent physical deformities, muscular atrophy and mutilation, if medical treatment is not given immediately.
The disease is curable with proper medication, within one year after contraction.
The number of lepers in West Java declined to 1,854 in 2002, but rose to more than 2,000 in 2004 before dropping again in 2006.
