2 North Cotabato teens have leprosy mother refuses treatment

PRES. ROXAS, North Cotabato-Two teenagers from a remote village here were diagnosed to have leprosy, an infectious disease of the skin and nerves which, if untreated, can lead to disability and blindness. The problem, however, is that the patients’ mother refused to continue the treatment being administered to them, President Roxas municipal health officer Dr. Dominic Laos said. Laos said the patients, whose identities are kept hidden from public, were diagnosed in July last year to have carried the disease after series of laboratory tests. The treatment also started last year but lasted only for two months. This, according to Dr. Laos, was because the mother decided to stop getting medicines from the town’s rural health unit (RHU), without valid reason. The mother, he stressed, refused to accept her sons have leprosy. Two months later, Laos and his medical team went back to the village to again convince the mother to let her children undergo the much needed treatment, which was all free of charge. Instead of heeding to Dr. Laos’ request, the mother sent his children to an ‘albularyo’(herb doctor) somewhere in Davao del Sur, thinking the disease was just part of a curse or under a spell of a ‘mangkukulam’(witch). When the treatment failed, the family returned to their village on Monday. After learning it, Dr. Laos has again sent a team to locate the family and encouraged them to undergo the treatment. To dispel inaccurate perception about leprosy due to stigma attached to it, Laos said the disease is entirely curable through a course of multi-drug treatment for six months or a year. The disease is caused by bacteria called Myobacterium leprae , which multiply slowly, so the incubation period is about five years or can be up to 20 years. Laos said that this is the second leprosy case her office hasmonitored in President Rojas since 1988.