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719 fresh leprosy cases found in 5 districts of AP
Alarming number in identifying new leprosy cases becomes a cause of concern to officials.
Nellore: Alarming number in identifying new leprosy cases becomes a cause of concern to officials. The Centre had set target for eradication by 2018. Freshly, a total of 719 cases were detected in 5 districts across the State where they had conducted Leprosy Case Detection Campaign (LCDC) in November. In fact, the State had earlier ended the leprosy campaign by 2005 as the cases reached to the nominal of 1 per 10,000 cases.
But, the State officials conducted survey in Vizianagaram last year on pilot basis in which 163 cases were detected which made the Medical and Health department to continue the survey. As part of the exercise, officials released Rs. 3.37 crore to Nellore, Anantapur, Kurnool, Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts for conducting the survey by ASHA volunteers and others engaged on temporary basis for the work. In Nellore, the survey was taken up from Nov 13 to 26.
The survey was conducted in five districts and confirmed leprosy cases were detected by the officials. In Nellore, consultant from NLEP Dr A Paramananda Prasad Babu had started the process of checking how the Asha and other volunteers collected data and followed the survey guidelines keeping in view of the possible errors.
As per the survey findings, 80 cases in Anantapur, 124 cases in Srikakulam, 118 in Nellore and Vizianagaram, and the highest 208 in Kurnool district were found. With this, the Government of India started insisting to make the State Leprosy Free and the consequent efforts have been started to continue with the further phases of conducting the survey in other 8 districts in the State.
It was also decided to take up survey even for six months if necessary for identifying the fresh cases and for taking up follow up action. In fact, experts in the field say there will be more hidden cases as the survey was taken up by only Asha volunteers and the medical officers of the concerned areas supervised it.
Additional DM&HO Dr CV Ramadevi informed that they had conducted survey in the district from Nov 13 to 26 and now the consultant is verifying the process from Thursday to Saturday on the special survey that was conducted for 14 days.
By P V Prasad
