Hansen’s Disease- a disease being eradicated?

• Autor(a) principal: Rocha, Elsa
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Outros Autores: Jesus, Gorete, Neves, Clarinda, Sá, Dulcínea, Araújo, Eliana, Pinheiro, Beatriz, Borralho, Teresa, Geraldo, Pires, Fernandes, Bárbara, Campos, Honório, Crespo, Jorge
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://revista.spmi.pt/index.php/rpmi/article/view/1459
• topic: Lepra; Micobacteriose; Mycobacterium leprae; Leprosy; Mycobacteriosis; Mycobacterium leprae

Leprosy is an ancient chronic granulomatous disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae. Prevalence varies greatly from country to country and it represents an important public health problem in developing countries. Despite the efforts of the WHO to eradicate this disease, it has a prevalence greater than 1/10,000 in one group of fifteen countries, led by India and Brazil.Clinical features are skin lesions and sensory and/or motor peripheral neuropathy with varying presentations and impairment evolving to characteristic deformities and disability if not treated.We report two clinical cases of two females with leprosy, whose diagnosis was made in the same year and region. A lepromatous and a borderline form, each of them with particularities and diagnostic difficulties, delayed starting treatment. One had a history of residence in Brazil but the other had no contact with endemic areas or other known risks.The authors present a systematic revision of the disease, reporting the prevalence in Portugal of leprosy in the last seven years.