This Sunday is World Leprosy Day. The World Health Organization describes it as a day to make the worldwide community aware that leprosy is definitely curable. This essential messaging is laudable. Despite being curable since 1982, leprosy stays steeped in prejudice and misunderstandings.
People need to pay attention to the early signs and encouraged to go to their nearest health post. They can then be treated with multidrug therapy, a mixture of three antibiotics, to stop the disease in its tracks. It’s paramount that this happens before disability sets in.
In Nigeria hundreds of individuals have summoned the courage to just do this. Yet they’ve been deprived of the treatment they so desperately need. And all due to a bureaucratic critical supply chain crisis. On Sunday, many will take to the streets of the capital Abuja to call on the Nigerian government to intervene for an end to the treatment crisis.
The multidrug therapy supply delay to Nigeria is a results of procedural bottlenecks. The failure of the pharmaceutical suppliers to satisfy Nigeria’s regulatory requirements can also be accountable. There has been no multidrug therapy in Nigeria for 11 months now. Yet, heartbreakingly, there are 3,000 people waiting for treatment, including 800 children.
Those waiting include little Nasiru who you may see pictured. The young boy from Kebbi State was capable of start leprosy treatment but not capable of complete it. This little 10-year-old’s life modified when leprosy left his fingers too weak to put in writing. This forced him to drop out of faculty. His father, a farmer, recognised the symptoms all too well. He had seen them before in his wife, Ramatu. He sought the assistance of a community medical examiner to get a diagnosis for his son. The same disease left his mother with permanently clawed fingers because she was diagnosed too late.
Thankfully Nasiru was diagnosed and commenced treatment quickly, offering hope of a full recovery. Yet he and his family’s hopes have been dashed due to the nationwide multidrug therapy shortage, cutting short his treatment. Nasiru’s fingers have now curled further into his palms. He is prone to develop irreversible disabilities which can affect the young boy’s opportunities for the long run.
Nasiru’s story is an incredibly painful reminder of the devastating impact of drugs shortages. He and hundreds more are needlessly suffering in consequence of a failed supply chain.
Sunday’s rally in Abuja is organised by IDEA-Nigeria, the National Association of Persons Affected by Leprosy. Meanwhile in Lagos, members of Purple Hope, one other leprosy-affected people’s organisation, may also be campaigning. They say the non-availability of multidrug therapy in Nigeria shows the very best level of presidency insensitivity to the plight of its vulnerable residents.
We at The Leprosy Mission globally stand with these vulnerable residents of Nigeria. We read within the Gospels how Jesus gave complete healing to individuals with leprosy – physically, emotionally and socially. So we call on the Nigerian government to intervene for an end to the treatment crisis. In the UK we now have taken the injustice to UK parliamentarians. As a world community we now have an ethical duty to do all we will to bring their treatment to them urgently.
Please do share this post to lift awareness of the injustice of this critical supply chain issue.
