Why cause concern a report on leprosy in Cuba and what is the situation of this disease on the island

The Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, of the Ministry of Public Health of Las Tunas announced last week that at the end of 2024, the province identified six cases of leprosy, including children.

In Cuba, Lepra ceased to be a «health problem» in 1993, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) indicator of less than one case for every 10,000 inhabitants.

However, every year about 200 new patients are discovered on average, in all age groups, including children, the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization in Cuba affirmed in an article.

According to The investigation “Lepra in children in Cuba: Epidemiological and clinical description of 50 cases between 2012 and 2019”, Granma, with 346, was the province where a larger number of leprosy patients was detected in the period analyzed, followed by Guantanamo, with 189; Havana, with 146, and blind from Ávila, with 144, although the disease was present in all provinces.

In 2023, 142 patients of Lepra were diagnosed on the island, according to the Pan American Health Organization.

The treatment, which consists of a multi-process therapy with rifampicin, clofazimina and dapsone, is donated annually by the World Health Organization, and administered in an ambulatory manner and supervised by the doctor and the nurse of the family.

“If the patient is controlled, it is much less likely to have some contagion, but here as all medications and even medication donations are not missing, they do not reach the population, the sick; The country is prone to any outbreak, to any epidemic of any kind, ”explained Dr. Roberto Serrano from Songo La Maya, in Santiago de Cuba.

Although there is no certainty, it is accepted that the lepria is infected «through the respiratory tract and by contact with the leather injuries of an unrelated patient, after an intimate and repeated relationship,» said the head of the National Program of Lepra, Raisa Rumaut Castillo, in statements to the website of the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba.

Martí News tried to interview the official, but he refused to comment: «I’m very sorry, but don’t even tell me,» he said.

LEPRA is diagnosed by observing clinical signs and performing laboratory exams.

Dermatologists have warned that people with leprosy are stigmatized. The patient, with the characteristic lesions in the skin, avoids health centers and isolates himself so as not to be discriminated against, which leads to the diagnosis and beginning of the treatment being late.

“The diagnoses are extremely difficult because most of the tests, of any analysis, the simplest that there is, special tests, anyone cannot be done because there are no reagents. Many times diagnoses have to be clinical, because laboratory tests cannot be done, ”said Dr. Serrano.

The risk factors that are associated with this disease are malnutrition, overcrowding, lack of hygiene and immune susceptibility of the infected person.

Dr. Serrano also referred to the carriers of the disease in the prisons.

“Those diseases that are of priority one, because they are extremely contagious, we must try to stop them as it gives. He is a patient who has to have special conditions, special hygiene, special diet, ”he emphasized.