Leprosy control in 7 districts of south Sulawesi, Indonesia, 1986-91

This paper describes the leprosy control programme in 7 districts of the South Sulawesi Province in Indonesia. This province is reported to have the highest prevalence of leprosy in the country. The programme started in 1986 with re-registration of all patients on the cumulative registers. Strict criteria for admission of patients to MDT were initially applied. In 1990 it appeared that these criteria had been too strict, thus necessitating a second re-registration of patients still on DDS monotherapy. More flexible criteria for admission to MDT led to an increase in MDT coverage from 45% to 78% within 6 months. By April 1991, 5 years after the start of the programme, the registered prevalence had decreased from 4.4 per 1000 in 1986 to 1.6 per 1000; the coverage with MDT had increased from 6% in 1986 to 78%, and the case detection rate remained stable around 4 per 10,000 after an initial increase at the start of the programme.