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Draft Report of Workshop on Sentinel Surveillance for Drug Resistance in Leprosy
Posted on 24 November 2008 by
Evidence of resistance to rifampicin, the most important component of MDT, which is used to treat and cure people with leprosy, has prompted the World Health Organization’s Global Leprosy Programme to embark on an initiative to set up a collaborative sentinel surveillance system to monitor drug resistance in leprosy.
The fear is that if resistance to rifampicin is left unchecked it could cause set-backs to leprosy control efforts in the next five to ten years approximately.
At the Workshop in Hanoi, Viet Nam, 20th – 22nd October 2008, experts from national leprosy control programmes, referral centres and reference laboratories examined:
- the standardisation of manuals and procedures for collecting, recording, reporting and transporting samples from each participatory centre;
- the standardisation of methods and procedures for molecular testing of dapsone and rifampicin resistance;
- the standardisation of procedures for data collection, collation, analysis and periodic reporting of results;
- procedures for quality control; and
- ways to strengthen networking and transfer of technology between national programmes and research institutes.
At the end of the Workshop the participants agreed a draft set of Guidelines for Global Surveillance of Drug Resistance in Leprosy. It is hoped that it will be possible to finalise them by the end of November 2008.
Besides close monitoring of drug resistance in leprosy, the Global Leprosy Programme has a second arrow to its strategy to deal with the threat posed by rifampicin resistance: the promotion of research into developing new drugs for drug regimens without rifampicin. This would enable treatment of patients who are not responding to the standard MDT or those patients who relapse after completing one or two courses of MDT due to resistant strains of M. leprae. Whilst it was not possible to discuss relevant research projects during the Workshop in Hanoi, because some eminent experts were unable to participate, the Global Leprosy Programme has the assurance of their continuing commitment to this issue.
Click on link to read the draft report.
Categories: International Collaboration, Technical information