PESHAWAR, Feb 20: Speakers at the Leprosy Day at Lady Reading Hospital here said on Thursday that Pakistan had 50,000 leprosy patients, of which 7,000 were in North West Frontier Province and efforts were needed to check the disease.

“According to WHO’s guidelines, the number of two leprosy patients in every 100,000 persons is considered dangerous. Fortunately, Pakistan does not fall in that category, but still efforts are needed to provide treatment facilities to those afflicted with the diseases,” said Dr Mulla Mohammad, leprosy programme officer of the NWFP. According to him, 100 million people were afflicted leprosy throughout the world, most of whom belonged to South African and South East Asian countries.

Every year, he said 600,000 new leprosy patients  were registered in the world. Fortunately, leprosy was on the decline in Pakistan, but still cases could be found in the remote areas of the province. The province, he said, had established 38 centres in different areas where the leprosy patients were treated and the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), had the sole 20-beds unit of the country.

Dr Mulla Mohammad said that 10-50 per cent of the leprosy suffered from eye-related patients, of which 5-20 per cent lost their eyesight permanently. Likewise, of the total 150 million leprosy patients in the world, 15-75 per cent suffered from eye- related ailments, whereas 7-30 million of them lost their eyesight poor ever, he explained.

Leprosy, he said was  not the only reason of  causing blindness. According to WHO’s figures, there were 45 million blind persons in the world, of which 80 per cent could be treated, provided they are given free medical facilities. About 25 million blind persons of the total 45 million lived in developing countries, of which the share of Pakistan and NWFP was 13 million and 200,000 respectively.

Director-general of the health, NWFP and acting chief executive of the LRH, Brig Habibur Rehman said the leprosy was an infectious diseases that caused painful white areas on the skin and could destroy nerves and flesh. He also urged the people not to hate the people afflicted with leprosy and help them in their treatment, so that they could be turned useful citizens of the society.

He said people should freely interact with the leprosy patients, because it was not transmittable through handshake or sharing of utensils etc.

Health minister Inayatullah Khan, who was chief guest on the occasion, said the government would make every effort to provide training facilities to paramedics and nursing staff along with doctors in its bid to help the people suffering from leprosy. He said the government had started courses at the Hayatabad Medical Complex where 70 paramedics had been trained as ophthalmology technicians in order to treat the people suffering from eye problems.

He said that the doctors and technicians had been holding free medical camps in Chitral, Kohistan, Swat, Buner and Dir districts to help the patients.