Public Library of Science, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 11(8), p. e3324, 2014
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0003324
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Brazil still has not achieved the goal of leprosy elimination established by World Health Organization. The diagnosis and treatment of leprosy is easy and the country is striving to fully integrate leprosy services into existing general health services. Access to information, diagnosis and treatment with multidrug therapy (MDT) remain key elements in the strategy to eliminate the disease as a public health problem, defined as reaching a prevalence of less than one leprosy case per 10,000 population. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the performance of a local health system to eliminate leprosy through a cross-sectional study with leprosy patients. One hundred and nineteen patients were recruited for the study, 50.4% of them (60) were male, 54.0% (64) were between 42 and 65 years old and 66.3% (79) had finished elementary school. The health teams have invested only in the individual perspective and they do not coordinate the patients' care and, also, their practices are fragmented without perspectives of integration between different health services and social mobilization, an essential condition for the development of an effective and responsive system.