VATICAN CITY, JAN 25, 2004 (VIS) - On the occasion of the Fifty-first World Day of Leprosy, which takes place today, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, sent a message to bishops who have been entrusted by their episcopal conferences with this pastoral ministry and to all those who are involved in the fight against leprosy.
Cardinal Lozano recalls that "according to data published at the beginning of 2003 by the World Health Organization and referring to 2002, 620,000 new cases of leprosy were reported: 48,248 in Africa; 39,939 in the Americas; 4,665 in the East Mediterranean; 520,632 in South East Asia (of which 78% were in India); 7,154 in the Western Pacific, and 34 in Europe."
Notwithstanding this data, "the successes obtained in recent times in the treatment of Hansen's disease have provided grounds for satisfaction and have generated hope that a definitive solution will be achieved over the next five years, and at the same time have led international and national health care institutions to launch a new approach to the effects of this pandemic."
The president of the council for health care ministry affirms that "scientific research, pharmacological forms of treatment, improvements in conditions of hygiene and community medicine, acting together can finally foster the uprooting of this disease, which has accompanied the history of mankind for many years. This is a praiseworthy action that can certainly be supported."
In terms of practical conclusions, as regards doctrine, "we should encourage and accompany scientific research by pointing out to specialists the contents, at the level of values, that must be respected in every individual aspect of epidemiological, biological and pharmacological research so that the unity and the dignity of the person is not lost from sight, above all in experimentation. The ethical criteria that guide good clinical practice constitute moral principles that must be respected always and everywhere so that no person, above all if he or she is gravely ill, can be used a mere instrument of research."
.../WORLD DAY LEPROSY/LOZANO VIS 20040126 (340)
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