Other useful publications
Consensus Statement on Prevention of Disability
This Statement is the outcome of a Consensus Development Conference on the Prevention of Disability (POD), co-sponsored by American Leprosy Missions (ALM), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations (ILEP), and held at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City, Philippines, from September 13th-16th, 2006. Participants (from about 30 countries) included WHO staff, national programme managers and a wide range of therapists and practitioners.
Download (67 KB)
Delayed Presentation in Leprosy:
How to Identify the Causes
A guide to fieldwork.
This guide to fieldwork identifies basic fieldwork methods to investigate the reasons why people affected by leprosy delay in presentation and start of treatment. The book describes the actions needed to prepare and supervise fieldwork, to analyse data and to prepare recommendations. In each chapter background information is provided and recommended actions are identified. Keeping in mind the needs of those whose first language is not English the wording is as simple as possible. At the end of the booklet are a series of Annexes providing more detail.
Don't Treat Me Like I Have Leprosy
by Tom Frist
This highly readable book looks at the progress that has been made in the battle against leprosy, and outlines both the challenges and the way ahead in the fight for social and economic integration. It will be of value not only to those wishing to look at leprosy from a non-medical viewpoint, but to those working with other stigmatising conditions who would like to share the experience of others in fighting social isolation.
Essential Action to Minimise Disability in Leprosy Patients
by Jean Watson
This booklet summarises the main 'action' sections from the manual Preventing Disability in Leprosy Patients available from The Leprosy Mission.
Please note: This booklet is in three sections.
Leprosy in Africans
by W.K Jacyk MD
A pictorial documentation based on photographs selected and annotated.
Leprosy in Africans was originally published in 1986. The examples of leprosy shown were classified according to the Ridley Jopling classification of clinical forms. This edition has been modified to use the current WHO classification of paucibacilliary (PB) or multibacilliary (MB). PB is defined as leprosy with up to five anaesthetic skin patches and MB as more than five anaesthetic skin patches or any case with a positive slit skin smear.
Restoring Dignity: The Yemeni Experience of Ending
the Isolation and Ostracism of Leprosy Patients
by Dr Yasin Al Qubati
Available in Arabic only
248 pages
21 cm x 15 cm
The history of leprosy is closely intertwined with the phenomenon of stigma, which is the main subject of this new book by Dr Al Qubati. The text offers a panoramic historical narrative of leprosy in many regions and countries of the world, with extensive coverage of Yemen. An overview of stigma in a number of diseases, including vitiligo, psoriasis and scleroderma, precedes an in-depth examination of stigma in leprosy. 179 references are cited to pinpoint the origins of stigma in this disease - among which are ones from the Old and New Testaments and the Qur’an.
Dr Al Qubati examines fear, and especially fear of infection, that lead people to isolate individuals affected by leprosy and even ostracise them from their communities. The effects on the ostracised are detailed. Unfair laws for persons affected by leprosy also come under scrutiny. Linguistic confusions and mistaken diagnoses, which have perpetuated stigma in leprosy, are probed.
Considerable attention is given to describing health education methods used in Yemen to educate and mobilise the community and inform them of the nature of stigma. These initiatives have had the positive effect of ending lives of isolation for those affected by leprosy.
The extent of the irrationality and unjustness of stigma and stigmatising behaviours is underlined by the author’s comparison of the small likelihood of contracting leprosy, with much higher risks, such as of being involved in a car accident, getting tuberculosis or of smoking.
Download Restoring Dignity: Part 1 (1.6 MB)
Download Restoring Dignity: Part 2 (1.4 MB)
Dr Yasin Al Qubati is the General Secretary of Yemen Leprosy and TB Elimination Society, GLRA Local Representative in Yemen, Assistant Professor of Dermatology in School of Medicine Taiz University, Initiator of the National Leprosy Control Programme in Yemen.