leprosy and Ethiopia
For many years TLM has been providing funding to the All African Leprosy Tuberculosis Rehabilitation and Research Training Centre (ALERT), a referral hospital for leprosy and an international training and research centre in the capital Addis Ababa.
leprosy and Ethiopia
- Globally, Ethiopia is one of the 22 Leprosy high burden countries (HBCs),
- In 2018/19, 3426 all leprosy cases were notified to the national program, of which 96.2% were newly diagnosed.
The burden of Leprosy varies significantly by region, ranging from 2.4 per 10,000 in Gambella to as low as 0.1 per 10,000 population in Somali region
Leprosy has been prevalent in Ethiopia for centuries. Ethiopian Christians were well aware of Biblical references to the disease, our literature also contains many legends of miraculous cures. We adopted a much more tolerant attitude to the disease than was common in the West. Maybe as a result of this ,People who had the sickness were kept apart from the general public but were nevertheless allowed to scrounge for money at court and at churches and to go with the soldiers on missions.
Ethiopians seem traditionally to have been largely unaware that leprosy was contagious; it was regarded as an inherited complaint. In addition to prayer and amulets, we also used foreign medications, primarily from the Arabs and Europeans, for internal and exterior application as well as using thermal pools and medically infused steam baths.
