Suspicious symptom monitoring for leprosy: an optimal practice for early detection under a low endemic situation in Zhejiang Province, China

Abstract

Background Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease that causes disabilities and deformities. Early detection is a major strategy for leprosy control. This study reported a new practice of suspicious symptom monitoring for early detection of leprosy.Methods A descriptive and comparative analysis between a non-strategy group of preimplementation of suspicious symptom monitoring in 2005-2011 and a strategy group of strategy implementation in 2012-2018 was conducted through indicators of the number of times of misdiagnoses, delayed period, proportion of early detected cases, and proportion of disabilities.Result Compared with the non-strategy group in 2005-2011, the median number of times of misdiagnoses was decreased from two times to zero times (z = 4.387, P < 0.001), and the median delayed period of newly detected cases were shortened from 24 months to 13 months (z = 2.381, P < 0.001), the proportion of early detected cases was increased from 43.7% to 75.2% (v 2 = 29.464, P < 0.001), the proportion of grade 2 disabilities was decreased from 28.6% in the highest year of 2005 to 4.0% in the lowest year of 2014, and the average proportion of disabilities was decreased from 33.5% to 17.6% (v 2 = 9.421, P = 0.002) in the strategy group in 2012-2018, respectively.Conclusion Suspicious symptom monitoring promoted early detection of cases by reducing the number of times misdiagnosis of leprosy patients, shortening the delayed period, increasing the proportion of early detection, and decreasing the proportion of disabilities. It is an important and recommendable public health strategy for leprosy prevention and control in a low epidemic condition.

Molecular epidemiological characteristics of Mycobacterium leprae in highly endemic areas of China during the COVID-19 epidemic

“…This study showed that the highest number of dermatologic patients was seen before and during the COVID-19 epidemic, suggesting that enhanced training of dermatologists in healthcare facilities and increased capacity and vigilance in the province’s dermatologic leprosy surveillance network for suspicious symptoms of leprosy could be an important tool for detecting leprosy cases in low endemic states ( 39 ). At the same time, close contact is an important means of transmission of leprosy ( 11 ).…”