A study of relapse in non lepromatous and intermediate groups of leprosy.

ABSTRACT

Dapsone has been used as a monotherapy and in well organised control units, the prevalence of leprosy has come down. The relapse rates presented in this communication are quite low compared with those reported by various authors quoted in this paper. Relapse rates appear to remain steady at about 5/1000 for each following year after R.F.C. for 7 years. This relapse rate does not appear to be related to regularity of treatment. The relapse rate appears that longer the duration of treatment, the earlier relapse due to severity of the disease of those who had longer treatment. Health education for R.F.C. cases on signs of relapse is a must before they are declared R.F.C. The levels of Sulphone in the blood remain above MIC for as much as ten days after the last dose and therefore Dapsone allows self-administration. It is expected that with the introduction of bacteriocidal drugs in the treatment of paucibacillary leprosy, the relapse rates would go down. As observed from a study conducted in Jalma, maintenance treatment as advocated by the NLCP (1964) and WHO (1970) does not seem to be necessary. The necessity of such maintenance treatment may be obviated with the use of multi-drug regimen in paucibacillary leprosy. This would enable a large number of cases to be released from control thereby reducing patient load considerably and making the supervised treatment of multibacillary cases more easy.