KARACHI, Jan 24: Dr Mutahhir Ali, medical director of the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre, has stressed the need to end discrimination meted out to cured leprosy patients in society.

He was addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club, in connection with week-long programmes, being organized by the MALC to observe the World Leprosy Day.

Dr Mutahhir said that after successful treatment, the leprosy patients could become normal human beings like others. He admitted that a fully cured patient could develop leprosy once again after decades, but, it was "very rare" and such cases never happened in Pakistan as yet.

Giving the details of targets achieved by the MALC, he said, after successfully establishing its service centres throughout the country including Azad Kashmir and very remote areas, the MALC was also extending its services for prevention of blindness and national TB control programme.

He said that Pakistan was declared "Leprosy controlled country" by the World Health Organization in 1996. Since then, the prevalence rates in all provinces, calculated district-wise, had remained well below the danger threshold of one patient per 10,000 population, he said. However, he added, the incidence rate (reported a case detection rates) ware still high in Karachi.

After achieving the target of "Control Phase", the MALC was embarking to another milestone "Elimination Phase" comprehensive leprosy services to restore dignity to all patients in society. These services focussed on the needs of the patients, their families and community, and the identification of each and every leprosy patient, who might not have been found yet, he added.

Dr Mutahhir Ali said that there were two stages of this disease; infectious stage that takes two years to be cured and early stage that takes only six months to be cured completely.

He said that the MALC was concentrating its efforts to create awareness about leprosy with a two-fold aim: to ensure voluntary self-reporting at the early stages of the disease, and to combat the irrational fear still largely associated with leprosy.

He further said that Sindh was the most leprosy-hit province with regard to 117 reported cases in 2003. -PPI