Epidemiologia e control da hanseniase, Brasil

Abstract

Leprosy, by virtue of its high rate of endemism in Brazil (with about four-fifths of all known cases in the South American continent), constitutes a public health problem in that country. This articles analyzes the aspects of its behaviour in accordance with current criteria of magnitude, importance, vulnerability, and institutional priority, taking into account the extent of the social damage that disabling lesions (depending on their location and spread) cause to those afflicted with them. The Ministry of Health supervises control efforts at the prescriptive and coordinating levels, while operations are the responsibility of the health secretariats. The paper considers the control operations carried out by six central-level areas of the program; institutional articulation, the promotion of science and technology standards, epidemiological monitoring of the edemic areas, and administrative monitoring of the programming and supply operations. The strategies adopted in each of those activities and the most representative results thereof are presented