The Ministry of Health through the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Program (NTLEP) has disclosed that it will start decentralising leprosy treatment services in all heath centres across the country.
TB & HIV Monitoring Officer for NTLEP Henry Kanyerere told Malawi24 that as a Ministry they have those plans to decentralise Leprosy treatment services in all heath centres to make sure patients suffering from leprosy access the services at their nearest health centre.
“These services are mainly provided at the district hospital for each district and we have not yet decentralised to the health centres.
“But it will be in a phased manner because we need to do some groundwork, we need to train people and we need to make sure that reporting tools are available in the health centre before we do the decentralisation of leprosy treatment,” said Kanyerere.
Kanyerere said as NTLEP they are working tirelessly to make sure they end leprosy by 2025 and most importantly they are working on finding cases out there and put them on effective treatment to cut the chain of transmission.
“So we need to make sure that those people who have Leprosy out there, we find them. Once we have put them on treatment they will not transmit to others. So we think that we might end the disease by 2025 but it’s still a tough job to do,” said Kanyerere.
Follow us on Twitter:
