Leprosy cases rise

Increasing numbers of leprosy cases have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as health agents reach areas previously inaccessible due to a five-year war, a senior government official said on Tuesday. The director of the National Anti-leprosy Programme, Dr. Luenga Mputu, told IRIN in Kinshasa, the capital, that there had been a rise in the number of leprosy cases in 2002, compared with the previous year. The annual report for 2002, just published by Mputu’s office, shows that 5,055 new cases of leprosy had been detected, and 4,624 in 2001. Figures for the number of people contracting the disease could climb dramatically as health authorities gain access to areas previously inaccessible. "We think that we could even double or triple the figures that we have," he said. For this reason, Mputu's office has started to seek increased state and donor funding so it could cover the entire country and to try to attain the national goal of eliminating the disease by 2005. Mputu's office needs more money to its US $500,000 budget so that it could cover the worst affected and most remote communities nationwide. The office recently sent a mission to sensitise residents of Katanga, Mainema and Kasai provinces to the resurgence of the disease. Katanga, with 1,500 cases, recorded the highest number of leprosy cases in the 2002 report and is consequently among the major targets of the sensitisation effort. This province is followed by Maniema, Orientale, Equateur, West and East Kasai - with 1,400, 1,200, 1,100 and 1,050 new cases registered respectively. War, poor hygienic conditions, and people spending long periods in the forests have accounted for the high figures, Mputu said. These provinces were among the worst affect by fighting in which some 3.3 million people have died, mostly from illnesses and natural calamities. The anti-leprosy campaign indicated that 11 percent of the number of cases detected nationwide were children. It said that 13 percent of the persons detected were at a point where their limbs had become disfigured. Mputu said there had been a resurgence of the disease in some zones where it had practically been wiped out, such the district of Bas-Uele, Orientale Province.