Case Report

Robust contact tracing and screening needed for leprosy control and protection of vulnerable children

Abstract

Leprosy in children is considered as an indicator of active disease transmission in the community. We report about a seven-year-old male from Telangana, India, with anesthetic skin lesions and familial leprosy history. Clinical examination revealed multiple, dry, scaly, hypopigmented, well-defined, raised punched out anesthetic skin lesions all over the body with both ulnar nerves enlarged. On clinical and laboratory examination, the child was diagnosed with borderline-borderline (BB), multibacillary (MB) leprosy, and Type-1 reaction. The child received a weight-adjusted MB multidrug therapy regimen and corticosteroids for type-1 reactions. This case emphasizes the need for contact tracing and screening for early diagnosis of child leprosy to prevent complications like leprosy reactions which are the risk factors for disability.

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IssueVol 16 No 5 (2024) QRcode
SectionCase Report(s)
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/ijm.v16i5.16808
Keywords
Leprosy; Mycobacterium leprae; Polymerase chain reaction
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Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Pilaka KR, Pallapati MS, Jaladi Z, Ebineshan K. Robust contact tracing and screening needed for leprosy control and protection of vulnerable children. Iran J Microbiol. 2024;16(5):716-718.