Between 1967 and 1987 in the Southern Marquesas, a remote archipelago in
French Polynesia, the
detection rate of
leprosy was 48.9 per 100,000 when it was 8.6 per 100,000 for
French Polynesia as a whole. In 1988, a program of
chemoprophylaxis of
leprosy with a
single dose of 25 mg/kg
rifampin was implemented, and 2751
persons (98.7% of the
population) were treated in the Southern Marquesas. In addition, 678 South Marquesans and 2466 members of their
families living in the Northern Marquesas and in the Society Archipelago, received the same
chemoprophylaxis. Among 2676
persons studied in the Southern Marquesas (97.4% of the treated
population), 130 had elevated
IgM anti-phenolic
glycolipid-I
antibodies by
ELISA without any evidence of
leprosy. The onset of a
skin lesion of
borderline leprosy in a boy 3 months after
chemoprophylaxis raises the question of the
nature of such a
skin lesion and, indirectly, of the
effectiveness of the
chemoprophylaxis