Failure to identify leprosy during its early stages
Anjaiah works as a taxi driver in Hyderabad. He is married with three children. Anjaiah was initially referred to us by his doctor who had earlier failed to identify leprosy during its early stages. Anjaiah had also received treatment for his symptoms from another doctor and a dermatologist, neither of whom had successfully identified leprosy as the root cause.
His doctor did eventually realise that Anjaiah had leprosy and referred him to LEPRA but by this time we could see, from nodules nad thickening of the skin on his face, that he had had leprosy for some time.
By the time we met Anjaiah his bacilli count was 3+, this means that he was significantly infectious before diagnosed. As a taxi driver Anjaiah was in constant close contact with people during his day job and had potentially exposed a large number of people, including his children to infection.
We have successfully treated Anjaiah and cured his leprosy with no permanent damage. We were also able to give his family a clean bill of health. Had the delay in diagnosing leprosy been longer it could have resulted in permanent disability for Anjaiah.
LEPRA Health in Action’s India Programme is focussing on improving information and knowledge of frontline medical staff. With your help we will continue to ensure that as many as possible of our own professionals are working in the field to identify cases of leprosy early and to ensure that skills in this area are retained.
Please donate now to support this work. We rely on the help of people like you to make sure we can continue with our important programmes here and around the world.
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“I wanted to show how leprosy can be cured and people should not be frightened of it.”
Art competition winner
