Leprosy should not be a forgotten disease - Vatican

(Jan. 27.01.2007) Although leprosy can be cured, the disease continues to affect 10 million people worldwide, cautioned the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the council made these comments in the message for the 54th World Day of Leprosy, which is being observed today, Sunday. Advances in medicine, says the message, "have generated in the social mind the idea that this disease, because it can be cured, has almost disappeared in the world; in this way leprosy has become 'a forgotten disease.' But, unfortunately, such is not the case." He quoted August 2006 figures by the World Health Organization, WHO, that showed there are "still 219,826 new cases of leprosy every year, and about 602 new cases every day" - including from Africa, North and South America, Europe and South East Asia and in the west Pacific. Acknowledging that the “fight against leprosy” has seen a decrease by more than 76,000 new cases in 2005 over the previous year, he said that “those afflicted by leprosy in the world are still 10 million in number.” Cardinal Lozano called upon the international community to help nations where leprosy exists, especially those in the developing world, provide “environmental conditions” where access to health care, prevention services and hygiene is significantly improved and thereby work toward the “total elimination” of Hansen’s bacillus, the bacterium that causes the infectious disease. The head of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry urged Catholics to “share in the great service of the recovery of sick bodies, thereby making themselves authentic witnesses to the message that ‘Christ the physician’ is with them, and for them, to achieve the ‘overall salvation’ of every person.” He also called on Catholics to be in the forefront to eliminating the stigma connected with the disease.