Leprosy
Leprosy is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium Leprae. It affects 4 million people worldwide. It affects the nerves and the skin, and is divided into two types - so-called tuberculoid or lepromatous. Infected people spread the germ from the nose, and infection occurs via the nose. Symptoms first appear between two and five years later to produce the tuberculoid form of disease, and many more years than that to produce the lepromatous form. Skin involvement varies from small thickened areas with decreased pigmentation to large lesions with swellings affecting many parts of the body. Nerve involvement varies from thickening of an individual nerve, with numbness affecting the part of the body that the nerve supplies, to involvement of many nerves, with numbness and subsequent damage to hands and feet. Multiple drug therapy using a number of agents over a prolonged period will prevent progression, though may not reverse the nerve damage.
|
