Urban Leprosy, Kotaku

The urban population, particularly around the capital city of Jakarta is rapidly expanding with rural migration, as people come to the city in search of work.  With the high cost of living in cities, many people end up living in urban slums, where there is inadequate housing, poor sanitation, poor hygiene and crowded living environments.  These conditions increase the risk of leprosy transmission.

Unfortunately, leprosy knowledge amongst health professionals is limited or sometimes non-existent as some health professionals do not realise leprosy still exists in Indonesia.  As a result, patients are often misdiagnosed and do not receive appropriate care.

In urban areas, people have multiple options to seek treatment at public or private health clinics/hospitals.  Often people will ‘shop around’, trialling various clinics until they find a preferred clinic.  Unfortunately, due to the structure of the health system, there is limited information sharing between the public and private health sectors.  People diagnosed in private clinics are often not recorded in the public health system and cross referrals are not followed up.  This results in underreporting of actually leprosy case numbers and patients not completing their full course of medication.

Implemented by Yayasan NLR Indonesia, this project will work in 10 subdistricts of Bekasi, West Java, trialling an approach to tackle leprosy transmission in urban areas.  Working closely with the government Ministry of Health and the private health sector, the project aims to provide training to health practitioners in order to increase accurate leprosy diagnostic and management services across the subdistricts.  The project will also work in the urban slum areas to increase community awareness of leprosy and where to seek health services.