Background

Skin-related diseases are a major public health concern in eastern Indonesia, including neglected tropical skin diseases (skin-NTDs), and impose a significant social and financial burden on communities.

Sumba Foundation is a non-governmental organisation providing primary health care in west Sumba, a remote, rural island in eastern Indonesia. Since 2020, Sumba Foundation, partnered with University of Gadjah Mada (UGM) and OUCRU ID to implement teledermatology services to support frontline health care workers in providing quality skin services. This initiative was funded by DermLink. Through this project, we identified many people with previously undiagnosed leprosy. The purpose of the surveillance study is to explore the burden of leprosy, scabies and other skin-NTDs in Sumba.

Aims

By adopting a combination of several structured approaches to case finding and contact tracing, within the health care system as well as rural communities, the project aims to generate the critical baseline evidence needed to guide priority setting for a future research agenda on diagnostic, therapeutic and elimination interventions. To describe the burden of leprosy, scabies and other skin-NTDs in health clinics and perform active surveillance and contact screening of leprosy and scabies in Sumba.

Outputs to date

Study preparations are currently ongoing. Data collection is expected to start in Q1 2023. Preliminary results are expected in 2023.