Selective Special Drive (SSD): an effective tool to promote new case detection through community participation--an experience during 2005-2010 in Mumbai slums.

As per the Guidelines of National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP), Government of India, new case detection (NCD) in leprosy is to be promoted by voluntary reporting through Information, Education and Communication (IEC). Accordingly, in addition to the routine IEC activities, Maharashtra Lokahita Seva Mandal (MLSM) carried out Selective Special Drive (SSD) in slum pockets in Mumbai since 2005-06. The SSD methodology prescribed under Leprosy Elimination Action Program (LEAP) of ALERT-INDIA was adopted which included selection of slum pockets, identification and training of Community Volunteers (CVs), door-to-door focused IEC through CVs using standard IEC material and referral of voluntarily reported suspected cases to nearby Health Posts under General Health Services or to Leprosy Referral Centre (LRC) established through MLSM for diagnosis and treatment.

Modified leprosy elimination campaign in Mumbai (Bombay), India--a report.

With appropriate planning and preparation, a modified leprosy elimination campaign (MLEC) was undertaken in Brihan Mumbai (Bombay), which has a population of around 11 million. For the campaign, 4879 non-leprosy paramedical and non-medical personnel were trained and utilized as searchers. The MLEC revealed 1410 new leprosy cases, with a new case detection rate of 1.

Severe pan-sensory neuropathy in leprosy.

The sensory loss which occurs in leprosy is essentially cutaneous, resulting from centripetally ascending infection, the host cellular response and fibrosis, from dermal to certain mixed nerves. The hallmark is pain/temperature and touch/pressure loss. Muscle denervation is a byproduct of mixed nerve involvement.

Immunotherapeutic potential of ICRC vaccine: a case control study.

A bacteriological follow-up of 16 lepromatous patients with a high initial Bacteriological Index (BI) showed that in 8 randomly selected patients who received single doses of ICRC Vaccine (C44) at the onset of multidrug therapy, the average reduction of BI was from 4.4+ to 1+ in 2 years--3 of these patients became negative and 3 showed BI 1+ or less. Comparable bacteriological assessments in 8 non-vaccinated but otherwise similar patients showed an average reduction of BI from 4.

Natural killer-cell-mediated and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity in leprosy.

We have assessed the natural killer (NK) cell-mediated cytotoxicity and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) in the peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) from untreated lepromatous leprosy (LL) patients, LL patients on multidrug therapy (MDT) with favorable responses (MDT-R), LL patients clinically classified as nonresponders to MDT (MDT-NR), treated tuberculoid leprosy (TT) patients, and healthy donors. NK cytotoxicity was modulated by treating the PBL with recombinant interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) and recombinant interleukin-2 (IL-2). The mean percent NK cytotoxicity of untreated LL patients (15 +/- 3), treated MDT-R patients (20 +/- 4), and treated MDT-NR patients (12 +/- 4) was significantly lower than that of TT patients (39 +/- 6) and healthy donors (37 +/- 5).