Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae and is still a
major health problem in developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa, Global
efforts to control by intensive chemotherapy have lead to a significant decrease in the
number of patients of leprosy. WHO introduced multidrug therapy (MDT) in 1981 and
have settled the goal of the elimination of leprosy by 2000.
Multidrug therapy (MDT), which has been used worldwide, decreased the number of
registered patients of leprosy dramatically. However, the number of the newly detected
patients in every year has been kept more than 0.5 million in these 15 years and the
emergence of the drug-resistant M. leprae had been reported.
However, it is difficult to conduct the drug-susceptibility tests in short periods using
clinical specimens, because M. leprae is not cultivable in artificial media. Recent
advances in mycobacterial genetics have made it possible to clarify molecular
mechanisms of drug actions and resistance.
We recently developed the rapid detection methods of drug resistance in M. leprae by
analyzing the sequences of the four genes involved in drug-resistance. I will present
recent results of our study on drug-resistance in M. leprae.
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