New Development in National Leprosy Control Programme and the Issue of Integration

Abstract

BACKGROUND
The history of leprosy in Ethiopia before the 20th Century is not well-documented other than the traditional assistance given for many centuries by the Ethiopian Orthodox church, in the name of Gebre-Kirstos, patron Saint of leprosy patients. The assistance was given to those patients who lived around its churches and monasteries. Today, alms seekers and deformed leprosy patients still crowd around churches on church feast days begging for alms from the church and the faithful. Dr. Feron from France was the first to attempt to provide "modern " leprosy care at the beginning of this Century .He had obtained permission to care for leprosy patients outside Harar town. The project was known as St. Antoine's and still exists today as a typical old leprosy village just outside the city. Specialized hospital care began in 1930 when the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM)2 built a leprosarium in the suburb of Addis Ababa to care for the growing number of patients in the city. The foundation stone of the former Princess Zenebe Work Memorial Hospital, now called Addis Ababa Leprosy Hospital was laid in November 1932. Also in 1930 in Tigrai Region, an institute for the scientific study of the disease and its treatment was established in Selekleka by the Order of Malta. Here an agricultural settlement housed 500 patients and a further 100 were treated in the hospital. The Institute was later destroyed during the ltalo-Ethiopian War (1936-41 ). (1)