Leprosy elimination campaign, Amazonas-Brazil 1997

A leprosy elimination campaign (LEC) was carried out in 15 endemic areas of Amazonas State, Brazil, in 1997. The LEC concentrated effort to detect lep rosy cases during a multi-vaccination national campaign for serious public health problems other than leprosy, such as polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, m easles, etc. The national campaign involved intensive population mobilizati on, giving a valuable opportunity to examine people for leprosy. The LEC pe rsonnel included 2964 individuals (municipal and state health workers and c ommunity volunteers), distributed in 688 health units and 53 reference heal th centres. As a result of the LEG, 74,814 person-to-person communications in the community were given; 10,297 clinical skin examinations were conduct ed, and 40 new leprosy cases were detected on the day of the campaign in ur ban areas of the municipalities. This total was low, compared to results in other states of Brazil, possibly due to the development of health educatio n activities and regular community services in the state of Amazonas since 1987 and to the early implementation of WHO multiple drug therapy (MDT) fro m 1982 onwards. Despite the fact that the LEC was carried out only in the u rban areas of the municipalities, the finding of no cases of leprosy in 7 o ut of 15 of them was surprising and may indicate that the prevalence of hid den cases of leprosy is not all that high, at least in these areas of the A mazonas State.