MANAGEMENT OF LEPROSY ON THE BASIS OF THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF DISABILITIES

With the reduction on caseload due to the impact of multidrug therapy (MDT) in most parts of India, we believe that there is a need to under stand the epidemiology of disabilities in leprosy which may not necess arily correlate with the distribution pattern of active disease. We pr esent a methodology of data collection and verification taking the dis trict as a unit to calculate the prevalence rate of disability as an e xclusive entity in the district population, unrelated to the problems posed by the communicable component of leprosy. This study indicated t hat the prevalence rate of Grade II disabilities in 14 hyperendemic di stricts was 0 . 82/1000, whereas it was 0 . 22/1000 in low endemic dis tricts. Limb disability data collected from three hyperendemic distric ts in Andhra Pradesh following task-oriented training enabled the para medical worker to offer services to 5753 disabled patients after asses sing the disability caseload per worker.