Investigating factors in the spread of leprosy through household contacts
Leprosy is a disease that has been recorded throughout history and is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae. Leprosy is still very prevalent in India, where more than half of new cases can be found. The bacterium can be transmitted through droplets or close contact. The purpose of this essay is to examine the transmission of leprosy to household contacts by examining previous research through a literature review and analyzing data that has been collected previously. The public health importance of this essay is that by analyzing the transmission, interventions can be designed to stop this from occurring. Well planned and successful interventions can help to reduce the burden of the disease and will help in the path to its eradication. This research consisted of a literature review and analysis of previously collected data. The literature review showed that males were more susceptible to leprosy and that a closer genetic relation increases the risk of leprosy transmission. More research is needed to discover why males are more susceptible to leprosy than females. Data analysis also showed that most cases occurred among contacts that that had closer genetic relationships with the index cases. The data also showed that the duration between diagnoses of the index and contact cases ranged from 1 year to 16 years. This shows that for successful contact tracing interventions, monitoring should be done for at least 5 years to detect undiagnosed cases. That way, many of the cases that go unnoticed will be diagnosed early on and can be treated early. This will reduce the risk that this new case will transmit it to other contacts.