Leprosy patients, including thousands in India where the disease is most prevalent, can now live better lives as the chronic infectious ailment can be detected long before it manifests as skin lesions, researchers said today.
Peripheral nerve damage is the hallmark of leprosy pathology, but its origins had remained unclear until now.
Experts have been exploring the relationship between Mycobacterium leprae, a bacteria which causes leprosy, and the formation of the membrane attack complex (MAC), which is a tool deployed by the innate immune system to fight pathogens.
According to new research, inhibition of MAC formation - which can damage adjacent health tissues and trigger inflammation at the early stages of the disease - reduces nerve damage and improves regeneration and functional recovery.
"Our new research shows that inflammatory reactions can be prevented at an early stage of the disease, reducing the risk of the nerve damage that leads to the disabilities caused by leprosy. We propose that MAC inhibition could form the basis of the future development of novel therapeutics from leprosy," said Professor Pranab K Das, Senior Research Fellow at University of Birmingham.
Despite a marked decline in the number of cases of leprosy since the 1980s and effective multidrug therapy (MDT), the disease remains endemic in several countries, including India - where the disease is most prevalent.
Almost 135,000 new cases of the disease were reported in India during 2012.
The fall in new case detection doesn't mean that the disease is becoming less of a public health problem globally, Das, a Senior Research Fellow, warned.
"Our research has shown that fewer people have been diagnosed with leprosy in Brazil due to the decline in clinical knowledge about the disease, and we believe this may also be the case in India," Das said.
"Coupled with leprosy's long incubation period, there also remains the stigma attached to those who have leprosy, which prevents many coming forward for treatment at the earliest stage," he added.
The research was conducted in Brazil along with academics from University of Amsterdam, Netherlands and University of Birmingham.
