Awareness Necessary For Easing Health Problems

People in the past considered leprosy, the diseases that causes physical deformity as a curse of previous birth. The affliction is regarded as the outcome of some misdeeds of the concerned person who is suffering from the malady. The lepers were isolated from the rest of the people and treated with contempt. Even today in some rural parts of the country, the leprosy patients are not received well. What they do not seem to understand is that the disease is not a communicable one. With the modern medical facilities today, the disease is no more incurable. The government is providing medicines to the patients free of cost. But the problem in a country like Nepal, where there is not much public awareness about the disease, is that the people tend to hide the disease and come out for treatment in the later stages when complete treatment is not possible. This causes their physical deformities beyond recognition. Therefore, the concerned health authority should launch public awareness campaign along with the treatment programmes.

Siddhartha Yonjan
Buddha Nagar, Kathmandu