KARACHI, June 30: The Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre (MALC) will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ‘Leprosy Control Programme – Pakistan’ from August 2005 to August 2006, commemorating the journey that was initiated in 1956. The efforts that began in Karachi from a tiny shed built by the leprosy patients themselves from wooden fruit crates under the guidance of young Mexican Sister, and later taken upon by Dr Ruth Pfau, a young German lady doctor, in 1960.

This was gradually developed into the National Leprosy Control Programme.

Sheer hard work and absolute commitment of the individuals associated with the programme managed to achieve the first objective of controlling the disease in the country in 1996.

Leprosy prevalence has declined to less than one active case in a population of 10,000, the danger threshold below which a disease ceases to be a public health problem, MALC sources maintained.—APP