Africa

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South Asian countries grappling with the erosion of democratic norms, growing authoritarianism, the crackdown on freedom of press, speech and dissent, a report by Human Rights Watch says. Credit: 2017 Paula Bronstein for Human Rights Watch

By Sania Farooqui
New Delhi, Jan 21 2022 (IPS)

As countries across South Asia continue to battle the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, causing serious public health and economic crisis, this region, which is home to almost 2 billion people, is also grappling with the erosion of democratic norms, growing authoritarianism, the crackdown on freedom of press, speech and dissent.

Despite the committed efforts of human rights defenders across South Asia, achieving human rights objectives remains a challenging task. Almost all countries in the region – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – face a common trend of human rights violations and a culture of impunity.

Afghanistan 

In Afghanistan, the Taliban rule has had a devastating impact on the lives of Afghan women, girls, journalists and human rights defenders. “The crisis for women and girls in Afghanistan is escalating with no end in sight. Taliban policies have rapidly turned many women and girls into virtual prisoners in their homes, depriving the country of one of its most precious resources, the skills and talents of the female half of the populations,” said Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch in this report.

This report states, “the Taliban’s return to power has made members of some ethnic and religious minorities feel more vulnerable to threats even from those not affiliated with the Taliban. Taliban authorities have also used intimidation to extract money, food, and services. Fighting has mostly ended in the country, but people expressed fear of violence and arbitrary arrests by the Taliban and lack of the rule of law and reported increased crime in some areas.”

A group of three dozen Human Rights Council appointed experts in this report said, “waves of measures such as barring women from returning to their jobs, requiring a male relative to accompany them in public spaces, prohibiting women from using public transport on their own, as well as imposing a strict dress code on women and girls. Taken together, these policies constitute a collective punishment of women and girls, grounded in gender-based bias and harmful practices.”

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, has urged the UN security council to hold all perpetrators of human rights violations accountable, “I ask the security council to ensure that the perpetrators of these violations are accountable, I ask all states to use their influence with the Taliban to encourage respect for fundamental human rights. Denial of the fundamental rights of women and girls is massively damaging to the economy and the country as a whole,” Bachelet said.

The Taliban victory propelled Afghanistan “from humanitarian crisis to catastrophe”, with millions of Afghans facing severe food insecurity due to lost income, cash shortages, and rising food costs. Afghan refugees constitute one of the world’s largest refugees population, with more than 2.2 million refugees. “Afghanistan’s displacement crisis is one of the largest and most protracted in UNHCR’s seven-decade history,” says UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.

Bangladesh

While Bangladesh, despite making economic progress and getting upgraded by the United Nations from the category of least developed country to developing country last November, the country continues to be in the news for enforced disappearances, abductions, torture and extrajudicial killings by its security forces with impunity.

In this letter written by 12 organizations to Under-Secretary-General Jean-Pierre Lacroix, urging the United Nations Department of Peace Operations to ban Bangladesh’s notoriously abusive paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) from UN deployment.

As many as 600 people, including opposition leaders, activists, journalists, business people, and others, have been subjected to enforced disappearance since 2009. In this report, Dhaka–based rights organization Odhikar said that “some of the disappeared persons resurfaced in government’s custody after being arrested under the draconian Digital Security Act 2018.”

“Human rights defenders, journalists, and others critical of the government continue to be targeted with surveillance, politically motivated charges and arbitrary detention,” says this report. Earlier in November 2021, the United States slapped sanctions on elite Bangladeshi paramilitary force, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), stating it threatens US national security interests by undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the economic prosperity of the people of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the only South Asian country other than Afghanistan to receive US sanctions since 1998.

India

In 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in India was downgraded from a free democracy to a “partially free democracy” by global political rights and liberties US-based nonprofit Freedom House. Following this, a Sweden based V-Dem institute said, India had become an “electoral autocracy”. The country has slid from No. 35 in 2006 to No. 53 today on The Economist’s list.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended India be designated as a “country of particular concern, or CPC, for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing and egregious religious freedom violations, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act in its report.

In its World Report 2022, Human Rights Watch said, “Indian authorities intensified their crackdown on activists, journalists, and other critics of the government using politically motivated prosecutions in 2021. “Attacks against religious minorities were carried out with impunity under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Hindu nationalist government.”

Indian authorities have continued to press charges against students, activities, journalists, including counter-terrorism and sedition laws. To undermine rights to privacy and freedom of expression, reports of Pegasus spyware, developed and sold by Israeli company NSO group, were used to target Indian human rights defenders, journalists, and opposition politicians.

The ongoing harassment of journalists, including particularly those reporting from and in Kashmir, including the recent crackdown on Kashmir’s independent press club being shut down, arbitrary detention of journalists, alleged custodial killings, and a broader pattern of systematic infringement of fundamental rights used against the local population,” the report said.

According to this report, calls for genocide have become more common than ever, “where Hindu extremists organized 12 events over 24 months in four states, calling for genocide of Muslims, attacks on Christian minority and insurrection against the government. In this interview, the founding president of Genocide Watch, has warned: “Genocide could very well happen in India.”  

Nepal

In Nepal, lack of effective government leadership, inadequate and unequal access to health care, and a ‘pervasive culture of impunity’ continue to undermine the country’s fundamental human rights. “A lack of effective government leadership in Nepal means that little is done to uphold citizens’ rights, leaving millions to fend for themselves without adequate services such as for health or education, said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director, Human Rights Watch.

“Systemic impunity for human rights abuses extends to ongoing violations, undermining the principles of accountability and the rule of law in post-conflict Nepal. The report states that the authorities routinely fail to investigate or prosecute killings or torture allegedly carried by security forces,” the report states.

In October 2020, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) published 20 years of data, naming 286 people, mostly police officials, military personnel, and former Maoist insurgents, “as suspects in serious crimes, including torture, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings”.

Along with this, the situation of women’s and girls’ human rights continues to be alarming in the country. According to this report, Nepal has the highest rate of child marriages in Asia, with 33 percent of girls marrying before 18 years and 8 percent by 15. Reports also indicate there has been an increase in cases of rape in 2021, with widespread impunity for sexual violence.

Patriarchal Citizenship Law in Nepal which does not treat men and women unequally, has been criticized for undermining Nepali women’s identities and agency, subordinating them to the position of second-class citizens – also impacting children.

Pakistan

The Pakistan government, on the other hand, “harassed and at times persecuted human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists for criticizing government officials and policies,” said this report by Human Rights Watch. Significant human rights issues include freedom of expression, attacks on civil society groups, freedom of religion and belief, forced disappearances by governments and their agents, unlawful or arbitrary killings, extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, terrorism, counter-terrorism and law enforcement abuses.

“Pakistan failed to enact a law criminalizing torture despite Pakistan’s obligation to do so under the Convention against Torture,” the report said.  The country’s regressive blasphemy law provides a pretext for violence against religious minorities, leaving them vulnerable to arbitrary arrests and prosecution.

According to this report by Human Rights Without Frontiers, 1,865 people have been charged with blasphemy laws, with a significant spike in 2020, when 200 cases were registered.

This piece highlights the plight of thousands of Pakistan’s Baloch who security forces have abducted. International human rights law strictly prohibits enforced disappearances, in Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan vowed that a draft law to criminalize enforced disappearances would be “fast-tracked”. A bill about enforced disappearances, which the National Assembly passed, mysteriously went missing after it was sent to the Senate.

The continued attack on journalists and activists for violations of the Electronic Crimes Act, the use of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), an anti-corruption agency to target critics, attacks and well-coordinated campaigns and attacks on women journalists on social media, and reported intimidation of nongovernmental organizations, including harassment and surveillance are all crackdowns which are only getting worse.

Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, the government continued to ‘suppress minority communities and harassed activists, and undermined democratic institutions.’ According to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2022, “President Gotabaya Rajapaksha seems determined to reverse past rights improvements and protect those implicated in serious abuses. While promising reforms and justice to deflate international criticism, his administration has stepped up suppression of minority communities,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.

The report highlights the harassment of security forces towards human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and the families of victims of past abuses and suppression of peaceful protests. As covid-19 cases surged in the country, military-controlled response to the pandemic “led to serious right violations”.

A major concern from the minority Muslim and Christian communities in Sri Lanka was the government’s order not to allow the bodies of Covid victims to be buried. According to this report, “several bodies were forcibly cremated, despite experts saying that bodies could be buried with proper safety measures.” This order, which rights activists said was intended to target minorities and did not respect religions, after much criticism was reversed.

A leading British religious freedom advocacy group, CSW, in its report titled, “A Nation Divided: The state of freedom of religious or belief in Sri Lanka,” said the Muslim community experiences “severe” religious freedom violations. A key factor in the violations is the perception by Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalists that Muslims are a threat to both Buddhism and the Sinhalese. The report also noted attempts to “reduce the visibility of Islam through the destruction of mosques and restrictive stances on religious clothing.

 

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A decade after civil conflict erupted in Mali, hopes for an early resolution to insurgency and strife have not materialized, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the country, El-Ghassim Wane, told the Security Council January 11 2022.

By Adam Dicko
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 2022 (IPS)

Last week, I was delighted to speak to the United Nations Security Council. In the ten years that my country has been experiencing conflict, violence, and instability, dozens of conferences and other international summits have been held without ever really making room for those who are mobilized on a daily basis for more social justice, the defense of human rights and achieving Malian peace.

My country – and the Sahel as a whole – are rich with dynamic and innovative civil societies and youth. After 10 years of failed strategies to resolve the Sahelian crises, it is time for a change in strategy, a more humble approach, and the development of common solutions in which the local populations feel truly reflected.

I am speaking out to make that a reality, in the name of Anta, a young girl from the center of Mali who was the first victim of the security crisis, forced to flee her village to find refuge in an IDP camp, and who witnessed the killing of her parents by terrorist groups.

And in the name of Amadou, a young man from the south who is seeking economic opportunities, who is barely out of his teens, and who has to leave his homeland and venture out to sea, risking his own life to seek a better life. I speak on behalf of all those young Malians who aspire for a better tomorrow.

Two years of fighting Covid-19, there is another virus which has been spreading in Mali and the Sahel and whose many variants are dangerously feeding the crises and instability that have brought us together today: it is the virus of social, economic, political, and environmental inequality.

This virus has triggered glaring disparities, particularly in access to essential services. In Mali alone, just 2-3% of the pastoralist nomadic children attend school and healthy life expectancy is just 50 years. This virus robs millions of young Malians of happiness and forces most of them to live in poverty.

Adam Dicko. Credit: Sylvain Cherkaoui/Oxfam

It mutates and adapts itself by profiting from a system corrupted by bad political governance, lack of transparency, and a lack of democracy, which means that many of my fellow Malians do not feel part of a society that, at best, ignores them and at worst, excludes them.

This inequality virus is insidious. When power and wealth are monopolized by a small minority, trust in the very system that allows this to happen is broken.

The deterioration of the Malian crisis has laid bare the inadequacy of the current military response, which has been unable to overcome or even contain the threat. Young people are turning against the state – the most fragile joining extremist groups for financial and security reasons.

Young Malians are watching the media in bewilderment as they see global leaders feign support for Mali, while acting in their own best interest, just like what happened in Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, to name a few.

Mali must not become a new site of clashes between global powers – and the UN Security Council can ensure this. Mali deserves better than to become a place for settling political scores.

Unfortunately, Mali is now facing the consequences of poor political and economic governance which is feeding into despair, hunger, and poverty, and young people are the main victims. This crucial governance issue has been downplayed for too long by those who claim to be trying to solve the Sahelian crises. Yet it is at the core of the challenges we face in Mali.

Currently, there has been some talk of bringing back the state to areas where it has been absent for years and which have been taken over by so-called jihadist groups. But we never question the type of state we are talking about reinstating. Is it really a solution to bring back a state which is often perceived by young people as indifferent to their fate, or even a predator? Mali is suffering from a broken social contract. Our challenge is not only to bring back the state, but to transform the state and its public actions so that they benefit all Malians.

Our problems are rooted in this pyramid of inequalities. Whilst inequality is like a virus that spreads, mutates, and kills, there are vaccines to combat this epidemic.

Fighting inequality is well within our reach. This is about massive reinvestment in high-quality social policies that benefit everyone.

MINUSMA has an important role to play in this respect, provided that it integrates local conflict management solutions and local communities. It is time to stop with “top-down” decisions; budgets voted on in New York must no longer determine the needs on the ground.

Given the prevailing political situation in my country, I repeat my call for the Security Council to lead in finding rapid solutions to the political situation between the Malian Government and ECOWAS for the benefit of citizens, especially the young people, whose future looks increasingly bleak. The Malian population is the first victim of the sanctions and yet they have already suffered enough.

Young people are already committed to renewing mindsets and behaviors that ensure true hope and renewal can be reborn in our country.

Adam DICKO is the Executive Director of AJCAD, Association des Jeunes pour la Citoyenneté Active et la Démocratie, an organization active throughout Mali to promote social justice and democratic values.

 

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By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jan 20 2022 (IPS)

The Covax initiative, the hope of the countries of the developing South to immunize their populations against COVID-19, only met half of its goals in 2021. And as 2022 begins, and the omicron variant of the virus is spreading fast, the scheme still depends on the decisions of pharmaceutical companies and the goodwill of donor governments.

José Manuel Durão Barroso, president of the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, one of the entities leading the Covax initiative, warned at the outset that “as long as a large part of the world’s population is unvaccinated, variants will continue to emerge and the pandemic will drag on.”

“We will only prevent variants from emerging if we are able to protect the entire world population, not just the rich areas,” added Durão Barroso, former prime minister of Portugal (2002-2004) and former president of the European Commission (2004-2014), in an email interview with IPS.

Covax, a global access fund for COVID-19 vaccines established in April 2020 as an alliance of countries, multilateral organizations and private foundations, had brought together 184 countries by October that year and set out to procure and distribute hundreds of millions of vaccines against the disease equitably in countries of the developing South.

Under the scheme, one group of countries self-funds and pays for the vaccines sent to it by Covax, while another, the poorest, are to receive the immunizations free of charge.

Shortly after the first vaccines were applied in industrialized countries in late 2020, an encouraging first shipment of 600,000 doses of the British Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrived at the international airport in Accra, Ghana, the first country to benefit from the Covax mechanism, on Feb. 24, 2021.

The initiative was launched to distribute and apply, in more than a hundred countries, two billion doses throughout 2021, to ensure equitable immunization of 40 percent of the world’s population, before reaching 70 percent in the first half of 2022 – figures aimed at curbing the pandemic"As long as a large part of the world's population is unvaccinated, variants will continue to emerge and the pandemic will drag on. We will only prevent variants from emerging if we are able to protect the entire world population, not just the rich areas." -- José Manuel Durão Barroso

But disaster lurked around the corner. India was hit by a sudden, devastating wave of COVID-19 infections, and the overcrowded country stopped exporting vaccines. And the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, was to be the source of the vaccines for the Gavi-Covax mechanism.

While high-income countries such as the United States, Canada, European nations and Israel purchased large quantities of vaccines from pharmaceutical transnationals, sometimes in excess of their populations, it was logical for Covax to seek supplies from India’s SII, where doses were also cheaper.

A dose prepared by the SII could cost three dollars, compared to 50 or 100 percent more in a Western pharmaceutical company.

Thus, while its recipients in the South awaited vaccines under great pressure from their local populations, Covax had to announce in April and May that there would be delays, which occurred in the following months, placing many countries in an uncertain and impotent wait while the virus variants raged.

By early January 2022, the number of infected cases exceeded 300 million worldwide and deaths surpassed 5.5 million, with two populous countries in the South, India and Brazil, following the worst-hit country in absolute numbers: the United States.

Instead of two billion doses, Covax distributed less than half of that – 900 million – throughout 2021. And as of November 2021 it had delivered less than 600 million doses, although it reached 900 million thanks to donations of 310 million doses in December.

What went wrong?

Durão Barroso explained that “the unfortunate epidemiological situation in India, combined with the fact that only a few vaccines had received the WHO emergency use listing and were available for global supply at that time, significantly delayed the launch of Covax.”

This situation “together with export restrictions, the hoarding of vaccines by many richer countries, and manufacturers who do not prioritize vaccine equity, meant that we could not access as many doses as we expected in the second and third quarters of the year,” added the head of Gavi.

When the race against the clock for vaccines began, “many governments in high-income countries made reference to global solidarity,” so that all nations would have access to immunizations, recalled Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy advisor at the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

“Pharmaceutical companies said they would do their part to ensure that the mistakes of the past were not repeated and that it was not just high-income countries that would have access to medical innovations,” Elder said in her response to a list of questions from IPS.

“However, this did not happen and calls to move away from the business-as-usual approach were ignored. High-income countries started buying up COVID-19 vaccine doses even before they were available,” she said.

The corporate behavior contradicted earlier assertions that antiviral vaccines should be global public goods, and pharmaceutical corporations, as in other circumstances in the past, prioritized sales to the highest bidder and sought primarily their own financial gain, according to MSF.

Donations arrive

The result of the first few months was that Covax only delivered one million doses in February 2021, 23 million in March, 15 million in April, and 30 million in May. From early on it was clear that reaching the goal of two billion doses in 10 months was impossible.

Confidence in vaccine delivery mechanisms, and in immunization itself, eroded, for example in Gambia, Namibia or Nigeria in Africa, or in Afghanistan and Pakistan in Asia. Anxiety also escalated because, having received the first dose of a vaccine, people demanded the second even more loudly

The first shipment of vaccines by Covax to a developing country arrived at the international airport in Accra, Ghana on Feb. 24, 2021. CREDIT: Krishnan/Covax

The countries of the developing South then began or intensified their search for vaccines outside of Covax. And, in parallel, some made progress in the production of their own vaccines, as was the case of Saudi Arabia, India and Singapore in Asia, Egypt in Africa and Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico in Latin America.

In the second half of 2021, donations began to appear, like a lifeline. Rich countries, having vaccinated large segments of their population and with vaccines or supplies such as syringes available, began to donate, often under the Covax umbrella, millions of doses to countries in the developing South.

Donor countries have so far offered Covax 591 million doses to be delivered in 2021 and the first half of 2022, and the scheme has sent 259 million doses to recipient countries, which partially explains the acceleration of deliveries in November (155 million) and December (310 million) 2021.

The main donors to Covax have been the United States (145 million doses), a group of 16 European Union members (81 million), the United Kingdom (11.5 million) and Canada and Japan (8.4 million doses each).

However, in some cases the doses arrived very close to their expiration date – or with a shortage of syringes or freezers to preserve them, as in Somalia and East Timor – forcing them to be discarded or sometimes sent back, as happened in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

The road ahead

Covax, in Elder’s view, was “naively ambitious,” and its success “was tied to unsound assumptions. Foreseeable challenges were not factored into the design of the mechanism and some poor policy decisions were made.”

“From its design to its governance and accountability mechanisms, the exclusion of meaningful participation of key stakeholders has undermined Covax’s ability to succeed,” the MSF vaccines policy expert argued.

The hoarding of vaccines and medicines by high-income countries has already happened on other occasions, such as during the HIV/AIDS epidemic or with regard to access to vaccines against pneumococcus, human papillomavirus or rotavirus.

For Elder, “if we want to learn from this experience to improve access to vaccines, the first step is to make a radical change. This basically means making the technology and innovation of medical tools public to guarantee an equitable model and decentralize production.

“Technology born of public investment cannot be owned by corporations, it must be a global public good,” she said.

In addition, “it is necessary to strengthen multilateral organizations and regional platforms, since each region knows best what its needs are, instead of public-private alliances based on the goodwill of pharmaceutical companies, which, at the end of the day, we already know what their interests are going to be.”

Durão Barroso said that Covax “has reached a point where it can now meet the demand of the countries it serves. However, there is a real risk that the supply disruption will continue in 2022.”

So “we have asked manufacturers to be more transparent about when they will make doses available, and from donor governments we have asked for larger and more predictable donations. This is finally happening,” added the head of Gavi.

Durão Barroso stressed that in the face of the spread of different variants “it is absolutely critical that we avoid a scenario of vaccine nationalism 2.0, where rich countries immobilize the supply of new vaccines.

“We depend on countries’ commitment to multilateralism and manufacturers’ commitment to transparency to ensure that we don’t fall behind again,” he stated.

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Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and Chairperson of the Nippon Foundation, thanks participants at a webinar ‘Raising Awareness about Leprosy, Role of Health Professionals at the Grassroots Level’ organized by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative. He is with other participants from Japan, India and Nepal in the “Don’t Forget Leprosy” campaign event.

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Jan 20 2022 (IPS)

The human rights of people affected by leprosy are central to Yohei Sasakawa’s concept of a leprosy-free world.

Sasakawa, the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, was speaking at a webinar ‘Raising Awareness about Leprosy, Role of Health Professionals at the Grassroots Level’ organized by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.

A leprosy-free world was one where “patients and those cured of leprosy live free of discrimination and, people around them will be free of the misunderstanding, ignorance and fear that perpetuate discrimination”, he told the webinar.

Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative is a strategic alliance between WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation for achieving a world without leprosy and problems related to the disease. The initiative spearheaded a campaign, “Don’t Forget Leprosy”, to raise awareness about the condition in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

The WHO Goodwill Ambassador envisions a post-COVID world where those affected by leprosy will be liberated from such stigma and discrimination in keeping with human rights.

Sasakawa says this world is now at risk of delaying leprosy elimination due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as there was a 37 percent drop in reported new cases and leprosy programs in many countries have stalled or scaled back.

Participants heard about the role of health professionals in combating leprosy, recognition of this role and the successes and challenges faced in addressing leprosy during the ongoing health pandemic.

Their role, Sasakawa said, was a central pillar to the vision of a leprosy free world as it helps reduce transmission and disability.

An estimated three to four million people live with some form of disability caused by leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease.

“The ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ is a global campaign because our voices alone are not enough. Stopping leprosy requires (the involvement of) all of us, from India and Nepal to all other countries around the world,” he said.

Dr Rashmi Shukla outlined efforts in India to identify and treat patients with leprosy. He was speaking at a webinar ‘Raising Awareness about Leprosy, Role of Health Professionals at the Grassroots Level’ organized by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Dinesh Basnet, Central President of the International Association for Integration, Dignity and Economic Advancement (IDEA) in Nepal, said he was happy to see progress in recent years.

“More so Nepal’s efforts to track and eliminate leprosy. Even during the pandemic, detection and treatment interventions were uninterrupted, and this has been possible due to government commitment and unrelenting efforts of health professionals,” said Basnet.

“People affected by leprosy were not forgotten as communication continued through WhatsApp groups, and this was critical during the lockdown.”

Dr Indra Napit, a senior Orthopedic Surgeon at Anandaban Hospital, Nepal, spoke about innovative technology in the trial of Autologous Blood products to promote ulcer healing in Leprosy. He added that a new drug was on trial to manage reactions to this form of treatment at this leprosy mission.

In a video message, Birodh Khatiwada, Nepal’s Minister of Health and Population, spoke of Nepal’s undisrupted program to address leprosy, including the continued supply of leprosy medication despite the pandemic.

He says Nepal has already prepared the National Leprosy Roadmap, 2021-2030, National Leprosy Strategy 2021-2025, in line with the Global Leprosy Strategy, Neglected Tropical Diseases Roadmap and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Sasakawa emphasized that it was indeed the ultimate goal for India and other affected countries worldwide to reach zero leprosy cases by 2030.

Despite challenges in the fight to eliminate leprosy, a ray of hope shines through, with Anju Sharma sharing good practices in case finding in India amid the ongoing health pandemic.

Sharma is an accredited Social Health Activist and is considered a driving force behind India’s public health system and an essential link between the community and the public health system.

“Screening for leprosy during the pandemic is much more difficult. As COVID-19 cases increase, so does my responsibilities because I have to strictly follow COVID-19 protocols, and this takes a lot of time,” Sharma explained.

“Due to the pandemic, people are hesitant about getting screened. But I reassure them that protocols will be observed and remind them that failure to detect and treat leprosy can lead to disability.”

Dr Venkata Ranganadha Rao Pemmaraju, acting team leader, WHO Global Leprosy Programme, emphasized that discussing the role of health workers was critical, and hearing from those in the frontlines helps efforts to eliminate the pandemic move forward.

WHO, he said, subscribes to the Don’t Forget Leprosy campaign. He lauded ongoing efforts to sustain counselling for those affected by leprosy and those who tracked and managed Nepal-India cross border leprosy cases despite challenges COVID-19 protocols like restrictions on movement and lockdowns.

Dinesh Basnet, a person affected by leprosy thanked health care workers and others for their efforts in eliminating the disease. He was talking at a webinar ‘Raising Awareness about Leprosy, Role of Health Professionals at the Grassroots Level’ organized by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Similarly, Dr Rabindra Baskota, the Leprosy Control and Disability Management Section director in Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population, confirmed that health workers had been relentless to find new cases, raising awareness on leprosy and treating patients despite ongoing challenges.

“Still, there is a need to train community health workers to detect new cases and manage reactions to leprosy treatment even as older and more experienced health workers retire,” he said.

Dr Anil Kumar, the deputy director-general (Leprosy) in India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, who spoke about good practices in combating leprosy said that a leprosy-free India was not very far off.

Despite a notable decline in screening and detecting cases due to COVID-19, he said critical interventions were nonetheless rolled out, and that leprosy-related services continued at the grassroots level.

“Migrant labourers were screened for leprosy at point of return to home districts and patients on treatment tracked. Treatment defaulters were cross notified based on the address in treatment record,” Kumar said.

“A WhatsApp group titled Leprosy Action Group was created for cross notification, and members included state leprosy officers and partners. Supportive supervision and monitoring up to sub-district level using virtual platforms continues.”

Executive Director of the Sasakawa Health Foundation, Dr Takahiro Nanri, moderated a panel discussion that included a session to further shed light on additional support needed to achieve leprosy elimination milestones.

Sasakawa suggested that health workers’ training included human rights, and the panel lauded health workers for their passionate and proactive steps to eliminate the disease.

 

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