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Countries reaffirm commitments to ensure leprosy-free world
Health ministers from 18-high burden leprosy countries in all World Health Organization (WHO) regions have reaffirmed and reinforced their participation to address leprosy to ensure a leprosy-free world
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H
ealth ministers from 18-high burden leprosy countries in all World Health Organization (WHO) regions have reaffirmed and reinforced their participation to address leprosy to ensure a leprosy-free world.
They also urged governments and all interested parties to prioritize activities and allocate more resources for the purpose of creating a leprosy-free world in the coming years.
'We aim to reduce the burden of leprosy and ultimately move toward a leprosy free world,' the ministers said in the Bangkok Declaration agreed in the International Leprosy Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, which will end on Friday.
They also reaffirmed that special focus on high-endemic geographic areas within countries would be applied through vigorous and innovative approaches.
'We will achieve the global target of reducing the occurrence of new cases with visible deformity (grade-2 disability) to less than one case per million population by the year 2020,' the declaration said.
The ministers also agreed to prevent the occurrence of leprosy-caused disability through early detection and limiting disabilities among already disabled persons.
The Bangkok Declaration recognizes that further work needs to be done and reaffirms the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners' resolve to achieve a leprosy-free world.
Leprosy remains a health concern in the endemic pockets despite significant progress in fighting the disease.
The WHO has recorded that in 2012, there were 232,850 new cases of leprosy reported, up by 6,224 cases from 2011. Ninety-four percent of the total cases occurred in 15 endemic countries, many of which are in Southeast Asia and Africa.
The number of leprosy-affected people who sought treatment only after developing visible deformities increased to 14,409 in 2012, up from 13,079 in 2011. (ebf)
