We are pleased to see that TLM continues to make progress in the area of disability.
Our hospitals and health centres offer world class disability care to large numbers of patients.
These figures are a testament to the hard work of our healthcare teams since our current strategy started in 2019.
Cover photo credit: Ollivier Girard
Aim: Reduced disability burden in people affected by leprosy and a transformation of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of people affected by leprosy
Healing wounds faster with LPRF
Our team in Nepal are working on a transformative new treatment that heals wounds faster than any other treatment.
The LPRF treatment (Leukocyte Platelet Rich Fibrin) sees wounds dressed with bandages soaked in a dressing made from the patient's own white blood cells.
This approach encourages healing and is providing dramatic results.
Providing simple solutions
Our team in India are working on a new type of cast for patients with ulcers.
These casts will be removable, which provides ulcer patients more freedom than any current cast options.
This approach is cost-effective and promotes better healing.
This practical solution can be implemented with readily-available casts across the world.
Supporting low-resource settings
Our team in Nigeria are exploring the possibility that honey could be used to promote healing of leprosy ulcers in low-resource settings.
The healing properties within honey mean that honey dressings could be applied to wounds on patients that are far from the nearest health centre.
Our disability care within hospital settings is of a very high standard.
However, we know that few leprosy patients live within a close radius of these hospitals and health centres.
In order to improve disability outcomes for persons affected by leprosy we need to grow disability services within the communities we serve.
This is something we are already doing in India, Bangladesh Myanmar, and Nigeria.
We hope to expand this kind of care in the future.
As well as providing mobile units, our teams are working on improving access to inclusive rehabilitation services.
This means making good use of nearby government health services so that persons with leprosy-related disabilities can receive rehabilitation care outside of leprosy-specific contexts.
We will continue to work with health centres to ensure they are trained to provide leprosy care and breaking down any stigma-related barriers that might prevent patients from accessing treatment.
Another way that we can improve the disability care we offer is through better monitoring of leprosy-related impairments.
We believe there is more that we can do to monitor patients for early signs of nerve damage and prevent the worsening of existing disabilities.
Leprosy is cured by Multi Drug Therapy, taken for 12 months. Leprosy-related disabilities can occur after MDT treatment is completed, so we need to better monitor patients during and after MDT treatment.
Self-care in the leprosy context means equipping persons affected by leprosy with the skills and knowledge they need to care for their bodies and the complications that leprosy can cause.
TLM is approaching this problem in a number of ways.
In Myanmar, Timor-Leste, and DR Congo we are working with local churches to provide self-care support within communities.
In India, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste we train family members to support persons affected by leprosy with their self-care.
Self-care groups that meet regularly in countries across the world also encourage one another in their self-care habits.
