"Indonesia`s leprosy burden is still relatively high. The number of new cases is sill relatively high and so is the frequency of the disease having caused physical deformities," the minister said at a function to mark World Leprosy Day at the health ministry here Monday.
For 2010, India had reported 126,600 new leprosy cases and Brazil 34,894, she said.
For the same year, Indonesia had reported 17,012 new cases with 1,882 or 10.71 percent of them discovered when the persons involved were already in a second-degree state of deformity or suffering from visible deformities.
In addition, in 1,904 or 11.2 percent of the Indonesian cases, the sufferers were children, Endang said.
The figures showed that leprosy was still infecting people in Indonesia and late discovery was still happening frequently.
To mitigate the problem, the minister called on the rank an file in the health ministry, professional health organizations, and the general public to control the leprosy incidence in the country so as to achieve the global target under the Enhanced Global Strategy for Further Reducing the Disease Burden due to Leprosy 2011-2015.
"We also must lower the number of second-degree deformity cases per 100,000 people to 35 percent," the minister said.
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Editor: Priyambodo RH
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