Leprosy - An overview from a pediatric perspective

Worldwide tourism is an increasing industry. One result of this phenomenon is the occurrence of imported infectious diseases, as recently observed eve n in Germany. Leprosy ranks high among dreaded infectious diseases from tro pical and subtropical countries. It remains a major health threat despite m arked improvements in diagnosis and therapy. This was achieved by a better understanding of bacteriological and immunological mechanisms over the past decades, resulting in a decline of Leprosy's incidence.