Primary health care and leprosy

Abstract

As a principle, the primary health approach to the control of leprosy has obvious advantages. It is 'appropriate', cheap, durable and available to those who need it most. It is firmly rooted in the community, and incorporates the best principles of preventive and educative medicine. Above all, it places the control of leprosy in a broad schema of illness and health, related to socioeconomic conditions. Yet there has so far been a failure, admittedly not unique to leprosy, to apply this model to the reality of the disease. Leprosy is as common today as it was 20 years ago. It is in the gap between these and the practice of leprosy control that the problem lies. What is needed is an approach that is sufficiently imaginative, broad and 'visionary' to bridge it.