3 research outputs found
The Prevalence of Previously Undiagnosed Leprosy in the General Population of Northwest Bangladesh
In order to estimate the level of leprosy in an area with many leprosy patients, we determined the prevalence of previously undiagnosed leprosy in the general population and compared this with the registered (or known) number of leprosy patients. We also compared it with the known prevalence of leprosy in contacts of leprosy patients. We examined 20 randomly selected geographical clusters of 1,000 persons each in two districts of Bangladesh, with over 4 million population. Physical examination was performed on all individuals. The number of newly found leprosy cases among 17,862 people above 5 years of age from the clusters was 27, giving a rate of previously undiagnosed leprosy of 15.1 per 10,000. This rate is six times higher than the registered prevalence, but three times lower than the rate in the most distant subgroup of contacts (neighbour of neighbour and social contacts) of leprosy patients in the same area. We conclude that in areas where leprosy is common, it may be preferable to do full village or neighbourhood surveys when a new leprosy patient is found, rather than to limit contact surveys to close contacts only, such as household members
Sex, age, newly found leprosy patients by cluster.
1<p>M/F ratio = male/female ratio.</p>2<p>Registered prevalence (at sub-district level) per 10,000 population per September 30, 2002, before the survey.</p
Prevalence of previously undiagnosed leprosy (PPUL) per 10,000 in the subgroups of the contact population of the COLEP study [13] and in the general population sample.
1<p>95% CI = 95% confidence interval for PPUL.</p