Abstract:
Leprosy or Hansen’s disease is still a public health problem in some African and Asian countries including Ethiopia. Even though its prevalence has declined after introduction of MDT, the disease is still one of the problems that persist in developing countries not decreased. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of leprosy among skin disease patients, to assess its associated risk factors of leprosy in Bisidimo General Hospital, Babile woreda, Eastern Harerghe. A hospital based cross-sectional study was carried out for two months (Dec 2019-Feb 2020) on 422 skin disease patients selected using stratified random sampling technique. Skin smear samples collected from study subjects were examined using Modified Zeihl Neelsen method. In addition, five years retrospective analysis of clinical records was carried out. Structured questionnaire was used to gather relevant information on socio-demographic characteristics of study participants, people's awareness and risk factors for leprosy. The largest proportion of study participants was in the age group of 15-30 years old and the proportion of study participants was lowest in the older age groups. The overall prevalence of leprosy among skin disease patients of the study area was (12.3%).The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between age groups of the study subjects in the prevalence of leprosy (P=0.003). Prevalence of leprosy was higher in males (24.7%) than in females (6.8%) in the first age group (15-30 years) and significantly higher (P=0.003) in both sexes (16.%) of the same age group than in other age groups, 31-45 (7.7%), 46-60 (7.8%) and >60 (21.2%). Most of the respondents (74.6%) had poor knowledge towards leprosy, (25.3%) of the respondents had good knowledge of leprosy. Significant relationship exists between leprosy and the risk factors like age, sex, family size, contaminated water source, poor personal and environmental hygiene and balanced diet (P<0.05). Generally, prevalence of leprosy was higher and awareness was lower among the study participants. Thus it is recommended that the local health sector should give continuous education to raise awareness, knowledge towards transmission, cause, and prevention of leprosy through community based education and improvement of contact and personal sanitation.
