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Thai Monarchy Honours DAHW’s Anti-Leprosy Work in Thailand
Posted on 8 February 2012 by
Wolfgang Kampf, who has been retired from his role as Representative of the Deutsche Lepra- und Tuberkulosehilfe in Thailand for almost two years, went to the Dusit Palace in Bangkok for a royal audience and received a plaque of appreciation on behalf of DAHW in November 2011.
The Deutsche Lepra- und Tuberkulosehilfe began working in Thailand in 1980 at which time there were more than 47,000 persons affected by leprosy. In her speech Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn thanked the organisation for their co-operation and stressed how interested her father, His Majesty King Bhumibol, had always been in DAHW’s anti-leprosy work in his country.
Thailand established its national leprosy control programme in 1955 and integrated leprosy control into the general health care services in 1971. WHO recorded the detection of 405 new cases of leprosy in 2010, of which 159 were women and 26 were children. Other ILEP Members currently funding anti-leprosy activities in Thailand are: American Leprosy Missions, Leprosy Relief Canada, Netherlands Leprosy Relief and The Leprosy Mission International.
For more information about leprosy control in Thailand see WHO’s Weekly Epidemiological Record on Leprosy Control in Thailand: Cases in Case Detection, 1965 – 2005 in which it is reported that His Majesty King Chulalongkorn initiated provision of care to persons affected by leprosy when he granted land to build the first leprosarium in Chiang Mai in 1908: http://www.ilep.org.uk/fileadmin/uploads/Documents/WER/wer8230.pdf