The World Health Organization says it will send leprosy drugs to Nigeria this weekend after resolving testing hold-ups that led to a year-long delay in thousands of patients, including children, getting the medicine they need to prevent disability.
Nigeria reports over 1,000 cases of leprosy yearly, a disease caused by a bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae, and mainly affects the skin, peripheral nerves, and eyes. It is curable with multi-drug therapy, but without treatment, the disease progresses and causes disfiguring sores and disabilities like blindness and paralysis. Patients also face significant stigma.
However, the country ran out of stock of the multi-drug therapy in early 2024 as a bureaucratic delay in supplies and new domestic testing regulations on imported medicines held up the drugs in India, where one of the components is made.
The delay, which caused significant suffering in the country, is just one example of the vulnerability of a global system that has seen stockouts in countries including India, Brazil and Indonesia in recent years, the U.N. special rapporteur for leprosy told Reuters.
A WHO spokesperson told Reuters that Nigeria had run out of leprosy medications, and the U.N. health agency, which organises shipments of the drug, had asked for a one-time waiver on the new testing policy. In January that waiver was granted.
“A dispatch of leprosy drugs from India has been confirmed for 8 March, with arrival in Nigeria on 9 March,” the spokesperson said by email.
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