2023-10-12 09:00:00
Nour Ali Thursday, October 12, 2023 12:00 PM
During its upcoming meetings, the Health Committee of the House of Representatives will discuss a draft law to abolish the provisions combating leprosy. The draft law stipulates in its first article that Law No. 131 of 1946 regarding combating leprosy will be repealed.
The second article stipulates that this law shall be published in the Official Gazette, and shall come into effect 3 months following the date of its publication.
In the explanatory memorandum to the draft law, the government indicated the reasons that called for it to repeal the anti-leprosy law. It indicated that in light of the spread of leprosy and the extremely dangerous public health problem it represented to society in the 1940s, and in view of the lack of a cure for it at that time. This necessitated the issuance of legislation to confront its dangers, so Law No. 131 of 1946 regarding combating leprosy was issued, including exceptional measures to confront its dangers, including compulsory isolation of the patient in specific places to protect society from the danger of the disease, as it stipulated in Article (5) of it that anyone proven to be infected should be isolated. With leprosy, Article 7 specifies isolation places, which are leprosy colonies or hospitals and places designated for this purpose in order to prevent the spread of the disease.
The government added: However, following the use of multi-drug therapy to treat leprosy in 1982, the disease no longer represented a threat to public health that required isolation of those infected with it, taking into account that the patient with it is no longer contagious to others, following receiving the first dose of treatment, and is cured following completing the treatment period, which is six. Most popular for the low-bacillus type and common for the large-bacillus type.
She continued: On the other hand, Law No. 137 of 1958 had previously been issued regarding health precautions to prevent infectious diseases in the Egyptian region, and leprosy was included in the second section of the schedule attached to it, and this law permitted in Article (17) the isolation of patients or those suspected of being infected with diseases. The second section is in the patient’s home or in places designated for this purpose. Therefore, the provisions contained in this law have become sufficient to combat the spread of leprosy.
She noted that most countries in the world have abolished laws that discriminate once morest leprosy patients, as Japan abolished the leprosy prevention law in 1996. Brazil also abolished the last discriminatory law once morest people afflicted with leprosy in the 1990s, and Bangladesh abolished in 2011 the law issued in 1898. Which provides for the isolation of people with leprosy, and the Indian Parliament also repealed in 2016 the Leprosy Act of 1898.
In addition, as of 1994, Egypt has become free of leprosy, according to international safety rates, following reaching a prevalence rate of less than one case per 1,000 people. It has also reached an infection rate of 4% per thousand people in 2022.
Therefore, accordingly, Law No. 131 of 1946 regarding combating leprosy must be repealed and the provisions of Law No. 137 of 1958 must be sufficient. In view of the consequences of repealing the law in terms of the cancellation of leprosy colonies established in accordance with its provisions, which necessarily requires allowing a transitional period to reconcile their conditions, it was decided to stipulate The law repealed shall be implemented three months following the date of its publication, as stated.
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