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Leprosy - The medieval disease is far from over
Mutilated limbs?
The classic image of the leprosy sufferer is a person whose nose falls away from his finger and who mercilessly starves to death.
The bacterium decomposes the skin and forms growths. It creates the so-called lion face (Morphart / fotolia.com) In leprosy, the nerves actually die and the blood thickens. Without feeling pain, the sufferers constantly injure themselves and do not notice when their wounds become infected. Blackening sepsis then, as a secondary infection, causes the lesions to die off.
Leprosy patients also generally live in the worst hygienic conditions in the affected countries, which makes secondary infections easy.
The horror knows many forms
Leprosy, strictly speaking, is not a disease, but rather a spectrum of diseases of a complex caused by variants and relatives of Mycobacterium leprae.
The worst form is the lepramatous leprosy. Here the bacteria migrate through the blood, into the lymph channels, mucous membranes and nerves. Red lepromas overgrow the skin and decompose it.
The lion's face
Now it comes to the "lion face", which flowed into the popular image of leprosy: The lepromas form thickening, bulges, knots and scars, scales and lichen cover the skin, and people felt reminded of the face of a big cat.
Ulcers and decay
In muscles, tissues and tendons ulcers are formed, which also damage the internal organs. The immune system of those affected is getting weaker. The patients do not die from the leprosy itself, but, as with AIDS, from the secondary diseases.
WHO sees the victory in sight
The World Health Organization believes that it can eradicate leprosy globally in the decades to come and has not counted it since 2000 among the general health threats. It helps more than 100,000 sick Indians, 27,000 infected people in Brazil and many thousands in tropical Africa.
The disease can be cured
But leprosy can be healed. Three drugs, dapsone, clofazimine and rifampicin fight the bacteria sustainably, however, the treatment often takes several years and requires systematic monitoring by doctors.
The WHO has so far cured 16 million patients. Already after the first intake of the antibiotics, those affected can no longer spread the disease.
A long incubation period
Leprosy has a long incubation period. Between four and six years sufferers can carry the bacterium in themselves and infect other people before the disease breaks out.
The epidemic is rightly considered to be a disease of the poor, and the infected in the slums of Dar es Salaam or Delhi usually go to the doctor only when the leprosy is already advanced and ulcers cover their skin; or they come because of inflamed wounds, which formed as a secondary infection.
Leprosy as a market advantage
In India, the center of the epidemic today, leprosy is even considered a perverse market advantage in the business of begging. Whoever shows open wounds or limbs who hopes to receive more mild gifts.
This even causes the poor not only to fake wounds or missing limbs, but even to mutilate themselves, to amputate fingers or toes.
To control leprosy, these practices are fatal. Because these untreated patients put healthy people on.
How contagious is leprosy?
The leprosy bacterium is only weakly infectious. By skin contact with leprosy patients you usually get infected just as little as through the air. It is likely that an infection is only when someone comes in contact with body fluids of patients for a long time.
Endangered are doctors and nurses who do not follow the known protective measures such as surgical masks or gloves.
The best self-protection in lee areas is to wash your hands regularly with fresh water.
Enlightenment is the goal
In addition to the fight against the disease itself, education about the forms of infection is an essential goal of the WHO.
scapegoats
With hardly any illness, those affected were and are robbed so much of their human rights as in the case of leprosy. Magical thinking, conspiracy delusion and conspiracy theory made them scapegoats who fell victim to pogroms.
stigma
In the Middle Ages, the "lepers" had to live in special houses, wear special clothes and announce themselves with noises so that the healthy could take them away.
Their marriages were dissolved, they were not allowed to make a will or appear in court. If they died, they would not be buried in a Christian cemetery.
Ignorance and exclusion
Even today, medical myths distort how one deals with the sick. Lepers are exposed in some African countries, banished from the villages, and in India they are the epitome of the untouchables.
As with AIDS patients, education is needed here: no one is infected with leprosy because it hampers the sick and the disease can be cured. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)