The technical report on Leprosy Elimination Campaigns carried out in three counties, the west of Hunan province, P. R. China

Under the support of Association Francaise Raoul Follereau, Leprosy Elimination Campaigns (LEC) were carried out from April 18 to July 31, 2001 in Huayuan Guzhang and Baojing couties, Hunan province.

Huayuan, Guzhang and Baojing counties are leprosy high endemic areas in China. The three counties are neighboring counties and locate in the west of Hunan province. Three counties have a population of 682025 with an area of 4149 square kilometer. Most of populations are Chinese minorities living in poverty due to very difficult transportation in the mountainous areas. The LECs were carried out in these three counties in April 2001. At the beginning of LEC, The working meetings were held respectively by the local governments of three counties. The township leaders, directors of township hospitals and health workers from township hospitals in three counties have participated the working meeting. At the meeting, the governmental leader gave a mobilizing speech on the work and the local Health Bureau of County stipulated the technical procedure on carrying out LEC. The Leading Group of LEC headed by governmental leader was also set up at the meeting. After the meeting, an important document for carrying out LEC was issued by the local government to coordinate the work. Each township also set up the leading group and issued the document to carry out LEC in the local township.

After the working meeting, a short-term training course on leprosy was held immediately for training all participants of basic leprosy knowledge and skill. The experts from Hunan Provincial Institute of Dermatology gave the lectures on leprosy at the training course. The participants also held the working meeting and simple training course at township level in each township after they completed the training course and came back to their home township from the county township. Several hundreds of village leaders and rural paramedical workers had attended the township working meeting and training course.

During LEC, an extensive leprosy health education campaign for the public have been carried out in each county. TV, broadcast, slogan, scroll, news board and leaflet were used to spread the leprosy knowledge to the public (see the Table 1).

Table 1: Report of carrying out leprosy health education campaigns in three counties, Hunan province during LEC

County	No. of trainees at county level	No. of trainees at town level	No. of posters	No. of scrolls	No. of news boards	No. of leafleats
Huayuan	90	232	727	45	21	808
Baojing	75	346	1562	308	28	456
Guzhang	58	184	216	16	24	2100
Total	223	762	2505	369	73	3364

The public were encouraged to provide the information about leprosy suspects and leprosy suspects were encouraged to do self-reporting to health worker or rural paramedical workers. The rural paramedical workers in Huayuan county have followed up contacts of leprosy families in leprosy high endemic townships. The health workers in Guzhang county have checked up about 7800 residents in 12 leprosy high endemic villages. Much information about leprosy suspects was collected.

After the extensive leprosy health education campaigns, about 249 leprosy suspects were reported in three counties. The several medical mobile teams were set out to townships to do check up leprosy suspects. Out the 249 leprosy suspects, 34 were confirmed to have leprosy with an average age of 42.5 and an average delaying time of 32.8 months from disease onset to being diagnosed. Of 34 leprosy cases, 17 were MB, 17 were PB, 23 were male and 11 were female, 18 with skin smear positive and 9 (26.4%) with grade 2 disability. There was 1 child leprosy case at age of 12（see Table 2).

Table 2: Report of new leprosy case detected during LEC in three counties , Hunan province

County	No. of suspected cases	No. of leprosy cases	mean diagnosed age	mean delay (months)	Male	Female	MB	PB	No. of cases with skin smear (+)	No. of cases with grade 2 disability	No. of children cases
Huayuan	112	12	46.5	38.0	9	3	6	6	7	3	0
Baojing	123	16	38.9	29.9	11	5	7	9	7	4	0
Guzhang	24	6	44.0	30.0	3	3	4	2	4	2	1
Total	259	34	42.5	32.8	23	11	17	17	18	9	1

Professor Baohong Ji from Association Francaise Raoul Follereau and Prof. Wenzhong Li and Dr. Jianping Shen form National Center for STD and Leprosy Control, PR China have visited the LEC field in Hunan province in June 2001. They investigated the development on carrying out LEC and visited the newly detected leprosy cases in township fields. They concluded that the LECs were carried out very successful. During the meeting on discussing leprosy situation in local areas with local leprosy control managers, experts find that leprosy incidence decreased very slowly in the past several years, even more than ten years in the low leprosy endemic situation (leprosy prevalence below 1/10000). They consider that leprosy control in 21 century in developing countries remains a painstaking Marathon.

Huayuan, Guzhang and Baojing counties in Hunan Province have received a total of USD 10000 from Association Francaise Raoul Follereau for supporting to carry out LEC. The people of three counties herewith express the sincere thanks to Association Francaise Raoul Follereau, and they will also always remember the kind help that Francaise Raoul Follereau gave them in fighting against leprosy.