A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO EARLY DIAGNOSIS AND PREVENTION OF LEPROSY – RECENT REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Dr. M. Anuradha*

ABSTRACT

Objective: of current review of literature is for early diagnosis and thereby effective prevention and control of Leprosy at national as well as primary level through multidisciplinary approach consisting of community medicine, microbiology, pathology departments. Design: consists of review of literature related to role of laboratory for diagnosis of leprosy and recent development in leprosy eradication programme. Inclusion criteria includes relavent publications related to early laboratory diagnosis and prevention of leprosy from mentioned departments. Exclusion criteria includes publications related to multi drug therapy, side effects, treatment compliance etc. Result: The search has identified 15 publications consisting of recent advances in both histopathology and microbiology diagnostic techniques and recent updates of Leprosy eradication programme. Conclusion: Leprosy is though one of the ancient scourges of mankind evenafter modernization in all fields it is posing us as one of the unsolved problem. Rapid and early detection of leprosy by applying recent diagnostic methods and apt planning and implementation of national policies is essentially needed for erradication of leprosy.

Keywords: community medicine, microbiology, pathology departments.