Anti Leprosy Day held at Tamenglong District Hospital

Daniel Kamei

TAMENGLONG, Feb 1 : A significant Anti- Leprosy day was held today at Tamenglong District Hospital in remembrance of Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation, with Dr. Chambo Gonmei, chief medical officer of Tamenglong and Dr. David, district AIDS officer as chief guest and guest of honour respectively.

After being long defunct the district leprosy had revived today. This department had no office and the officials and staff could not remember their colleagues with their names and posts.

At present there are five staff including one district leprosy officer, two non medical assistants, one health educator and one supervisor who recently retired. All the staff got their salary regularly even though people were not aware of their existence at Tamenglong. "As directed by the directorate we suddenly organized this programme," said Dr. Dharmo Singh, district leprosy officer.

In the meantime, speaking as chief guest Dr. Chambo said that it was a significant day and it may also be appropriate to celebrate the Anti-Leprosy Day on the death anniversary of the father of the nation, as Mahatma Gandhi was humble, patient and had no feeling of discrimination against any race or person.

Further, he also said that long ago people thought that leprosy was a curse from God and it spread from one person to another. If a person was infected with this disease people discriminated against the person and they even chased him out of their village. He also pointed out that in Nepal at Kathmandu if a person is infected with leprosy people will put a bell on him and turn away if he came near him.

However, this chronic disease was nothing, it is curable with the development of scientific medicine and with multi drug therapy, Dr Chambo said. This disease is not much in our state of Manipur and Tamenglong in particular, but we should educate the people about the disease and the symptoms and fight and eradicate the dreadful disease from the district of Tamenglong and from Manipur, he said.

He went on to say that leprosy was almost eradicated from Manipur. Many projects are in operation to fight leprosy like SIMLE, he said.

Dr. Chambo also urged the department to organize bigger programmes by inviting schools and public to give full knowledge about the disease.

Speaking as the guest of honour, Dr. David said that this was the first time the Anti-Leprosy Day was being observed in the district. People were not aware of this disease as it was not much in our state and Tamenglong in particular, he said.

The chronic disease does not spread from one person to another like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, he said.

The disease is curable now with the establishment of multi-drug therapy, he also said.

He regretted that very few people participated in today`s programme and urged the department to organize such functions to give full awareness about the disease and symptoms and reports to concerned authority for help in eradicating the disease from Manipur.