北部インドにおけるらい

II. Ghatampurブロックにおけるらい患者の疫学的考察

抄録

JALMA (Japan Leprosy Mission for Asia), established in Agra of U. P. (Uttar Pradesh) State, started the action in 1965. Along with the work in Agra, it had three out-patient clinics for leprosy patients in some rural areas of U. P. State; at Ghatampur of Kanpur District, Etawah of Etawah District and Brindravan of Mathura District. The former two clinics started in Jan. 1966 and Brindravan clinic was opened later.
The author and co-workers worked in these clinics, especially in Ghatampur and Etawah clinics for about eight years continuously.
This paper is reporting the results of epidemiological analysis of the leprosy patients living in Ghatampur Block of Kanpur District.
Ghatampur Block is situated in the agricultural field between the Ganges and the Jamuna rivers. It had 130 villages and about 130, 000 population by the basic data of ccnsus of India.
Some small villages have villagers belonging to one caste and big villages are dwelled by the people belonging to many different castes and religiously mixed (Hindu and Moslem), and still they have lived without any troubles for long time.
The total number of registered patients in the clinic for eight years (Jan. 1966 to to Dec. 1973) was over 32, 000 and out of them 3243 cases (about 10%) were from Gh-atampur Block. Over 35% of them were registered in the first year (1966). The number of patients from Ghatampur Block had been decreasing year by year, till in 1973 it reached 222 cases only (6.8%). The number of patients was that of the registered patients for the year, and did not show the number of new patients.
At the first year, the percentage of female to total cases was lower than that in the second year. It seemed due to some traditional customs of Indian society, especially of the rural society.
The estimated population for the Block was about 164, 500 in 1973 calculated by the basic data of 1961 census. The prevalence rate was 19.7‰ and this was higher than that reported by U. P. State Government for Kanpur District. The child rate was 15.9% and this was also higher than that of the Government.
Seeing the age distribution of the patients, the highest peak was observed in the age group of 30-34 years old for both sexes and totally. The second peak was in 25-29, and it was interesting that there was one peak in 10-14 age group. The depression for 15-19 age group was thought due to the emigration of young people to cities for higher education or occupation, but partially due to the self healing. The rate of male for female was 2.5:1 and in child group the value was a little low. Considering from this, we may say that we succeeded in attracting fairly many female patients from their home against the traditional customs.
The rate of lepromatous cases was 9.2% for total and this was the lowest among the reported values from many other districts or states in India so far we could know. The rate was higher in male group (10.3%) and lower in female (6.5%), so about 80% of lepromatous cases were male. The rate was much low in child group for both sexes and it was 3-4%. In child group, almost all cases belonged to tuberculoid type or indeterminate group.
Comparing all these results with the values reported from many other states or districts of India, it may be concluded that Ghatampur Block is not low prevalence-rated area of leprosy.