麻风低流行状态是否仍需要接触者检查?

目的：分析麻风低流行状况下，接触者检查对发现新发病人的效果。方法：对山东省近11年来新发麻风病人的发病潜伏期和相关资料进行回顾性分析。结果：1991-2001年诊断的547例麻风病人中有252例有麻风接触史，平均潜伏期为23年，90例家庭内接触者中仅有12例(13．3％)和10例(11．1％)可在5-10年内被发现，占总新发现病人的2％。结论：在山东麻风低流行状态下，现行政策的接触者检查的效果较低，为了尽早发现新的麻风病人，需寻求其他方法，如对医务人员加强有关麻风早期诊断知识的培训。

Should the household contact examination in a low endemic situation of leprosy continue?

Objective:To analyze the effectiveness of contact examination in case finding of leprosy under a low endemic situation of leprosy in Shandong Province. Methods: Data of all newly diagnosed leprosy cases in the past 11 years were collected and analyzed retrospectively.Results: Two hundred fifty-two out of 547 leprosy cases diagnosedin the period of 1991-2001 reported that they had contacted with different categories of primary leprosy cases. Among them 90 cases had household primary leprosy cases. The mean incubation period of the 252 index leprosy cases was 23 years. Only 12 (13.3%) and 10 (11.1%) of the 90 cases, whose infection sources were household contacts, could be detected, accounting for 2% of the total cases detected in the period, when the national policy for contact examination was followed. Conclusion: The effectiveness of the contact examination, in terms of case finding, is low in the low endemic situation of leprosy in Shandong. Therefore, other approaches should be considered, in order to find out the new leprosy cases as early as possible. For example, strengthening the training for medical staff at different levels might be helpful in early diagnosis of leprosy.