Greeting Message from Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland Director General World Health Organization
Presented by Dr. S.K. Noordeen, Senior Advisor, Action Programme for the Elimination of Leprosy, WHO
On behalf of the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) , Dr. Gro
Harlem Brundtland, I am pleased to welcome you and read her message to this Congress.
"It gives me great pleasure to greet all of you who have come from different parts of the world to attend this 15th International Leprosy Congress, organized by the International Leprosy Association (ILA). The year 1998 marks the 50th year of official relations between ILA and WHO, and I would like to take this opportunity to place on record our deep appreciation of the collaboration between ILA and WHO which has been so productive and mutually beneficial through the years.
Leprosy, as a disease with a sinister potential to devastate the entire lives of affected persons without actually killing them, is clearly a reflection of the extreme underdevelopment which still persists in many parts of the world. All the same, it is possible today to fight the disease successfully. Leprosy is a relatively weak enemy - it takes years to evolve, it is only feebly infectious, and today it is highly amenable to treatment. Moreover, it is not particularly difficult to diagnose and the weapons we have to treat it in the form of multidrug therapy (MDT) are highly effective in curing the disease and in preventing drug resistance. Further, a large number of organizations, national and international, including nongovernmental organizations, are fully engaged in supporting leprosy work in endemic countries. On top of all this, we have today a strong political commitment at the international level, and also at the national level in most endemic countries, to eliminate the disease as a public health problem by the year 2000, that is to say, to reduce the prevalence of leprosy to less than one case per 10000 population, as set out by a resolution of the World Health Assembly in 1991. In spite of this we still have hundreds of thousands of patients remaining undetected and untreated, and millions more affected by the physical and social consequences of the disease even after they are cured. We cannot afford to allow this situation to continue, no matter how gratifying it is that the leprosy situation has improved immeasurably in recent years. It is true that the disease burden in public health terms has been brought down by more than 85% Over the past 15 years, and this in itself is no mean achievement. However, what remains to be accomplished in order to achieve the goal of elimination of leprosy is the most difficult and challenging part. Therefore, let us not sit on our laurels, become complacent and let the historic opportunity of bringing about a leprosy-free world slip away from us.
