KIT Blog

Our goal of Zero Leprosy Transmission by 2035 is bold! Humanity has only ever eliminated one ease before, so it’s a goal to be very excited about!

Big goals are possible because of people like you. Even despite the setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, your frontline teams a re mobilising and are continuing to ‘push the envelope’.

Contact Tracing is Key 

Contact Tracing is indispensable if we want to reach a world without leprosy transmission Mass contact tracing efforts in Vietnam have seen the country go from more than 1,400 leprosy cases per year in 2000 to around 40 cases in 2019, including zero child cases in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Through your support and armed with the World Health Organisation’s Global Leprosy Strategy 2021-30, we are encouraging governments

to take the role of contact tracing, preventative chemotherapy and active case finding seriously. We’ve already seen increased governmental engagement in Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.

“Alongside its role in the prevention of leprosy, contact tracing is the most productive tool for finding new cases and may be the key to leprosy control in the next ten years” WHO Global Leprosy Strategy 2021-2030 p.16

WHAT STILL NEEDS

TO BE DONE?

Maintain consistent funding

Maintain close partnerships

with local governments

Train & mentor local health

workers & lab technicians

Train and partner with

traditional healers and medicine

vendors technicians to bridge

the gap in leprosy expertise.

YOUR SPECIAL REPORT: 

Contact Tracing in Timor Leste

In Timor-Leste, we are collaborating with the government health services. We aim to reach the household and neighbouring contacts of every single leprosy case. We also train the government health workers so that they can identify new cases. (Although many are not yet confident to do that, so our team still does a lot of the contact tracing.)

PRAISE POINT: in just two of Timor’s high-endemic municipalities, our efforts have allowed us to identify 80 new cases of leprosy in just six months.

In three of Timor’s low-endemic municipalities, we were seeing an average of 2-3 new cases a year. Once we started contact tracing in those communities, we found 18 new cases.

When our teams are with them, Government health workers are now much more confident about the contact tracing and diagnosis process. Thanks to your support, we can build their confidence so they can do the work on their own in time.

TAKE ACTION!

5 TIMES THE IMPACT

Donate $2 or more directly to a Leprosy Mission project in Timor-Leste and your gift will have 5 TIMES THE IMPACT!* 

*Australian Government grant provides $5 for every $1 you donate up to the full amount of the grant!

The Improved Leprosy Services Project supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP). Thanks to ANCP, this project is able to help improve the well-being of people affected by leprosy in Timor-Leste.

Thank you for following the example of Jesus in showing His love to people affected by leprosy 

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God” – 1 John 4:7