Outbreak of leprosy affecting people in Honiara

Transcript

Save the Children in Solomon Islands says there's an outbreak of leprosy affecting people in Honiara's evacuation centres.

The head of logistics and emergency, Graeme Kenna, says this latest outbreak is compounding efforts to contain the rotavirus illness which has claimed the lives of a further two children this week, taking the death toll to 18 in the past three weeks.

Jenny Meyer reports.

Graeme Kenna says no one has died from leprosy but the situation is stretching the health services in Solomon Islands as the country struggles to recover from the severe flooding in April.

GRAEME KENNA: Leprosy does happen in Pacific Island countries. But to have a sudden reporting of 24 cases, most of them in young children is quite alarming. The government is telling us and the World Health Organisation are telling us that they have the situation under control. Graeme Kenna says authorities are now searching to see how many other people could be affected by leprosy.

The Pacific Leprosy Foundation's relations manager, Lala Gittoes, says leprosy is one of the least contagious diseases.

LALA GITTOES: It's really quite hard to catch leprosy. You need to be probably living with somebody who has active leprosy for quite a period of time before you become susceptible to catching it yourself.

She says leprosy is usually first noticed as a patch of skin appearing that has no sensation and it is curable with multiple drug therapy that also stops it from spreading to others. Meanwhile the government's leprosy advocacy officer at the Ministry of Health says the 24 cases referred to by Save the Children are a cumulative number of those diagnosed this year in Solomon Islands. Oliver Mepela says many of the patients with known leprosy lived along the river in Honiara and are now still living in evacuation centres where there is increased surveillance of health conditions by nurses. He says the number of newly diagnosed cases he has a record of in the centres is six and three of these are children.

OLIVER MEPELA: Some of them are new ones. We have just recorded a few cases, up to around six, these cases are taken from the evacuaton centres, and they are mostly relatives of those who have been affected prior to the disaster.

Oliver Mepela says all the patients known to have leprosy are receiving ongoing treatment at health centres. He says usually there are 15 self reported cases every year but this jumped to 31 cases last year after education and advocacy programmes in known hotspots.