Leprosy situation in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) set the global goal of leprosy elimination in 2000, many countries have successfully achieved elimination. Indonesia has achieved elimination at a national level, but several provinces and areas still have a high prevalence rate. South Sulawesi is one of 6 provinces on Sulawesi Island, and 5 of these provinces still have many leprosy patients with a prevalence rate of more than 1.1 per 10,000 population and new cases are detected every year. The leprosy control program has not been successful in reducing the prevalence of this disease and 22 out of 27 regencies have, on average, a prevalence rate of 2.3 cases per 10,000 population, of which child cases account for more than 5%, indicating that there are many more leprosy cases in the community. The leprosy control program has been helped by the multi drug therapy (MDT) regimen based on the WHO recommendation and several research studies carried out in the area. However, we as yet do not have a clear idea how to eliminate leprosy in South Sulawesi and further research is required.