ALERT (The All Africa Leprosy, TB and Rehabilitation Training Centre)

The blogs will always have a very different focus: sometimes more personal like the last blog, sometimes more work related/ professional.
This time a little more about ALERT, my place of work. ‘Googling’ with ‘ALERT–Ethiopia’ does at this point not give you the information you might want to have or expect. This will, hopefully, change in the near future. An aerial view of the grounds is shown on our homepage. A recent visit to ‘google earth’, however, does not show the many new buildings and the ongoing construction: two new wards, one donated by the Clinton foundation for AIDS/ HIV positive children and another ward for TB (Tuberculosis) patients. One more ward is planned for admission of patients that will be participating in (clinical) research trials.
But then also under construction, or already completed: a two-story administration building, an extension to the out-patient department, a pharmacy, and an ART clinic, for treatment of HIV+/AIDS patients. More construction still on the planning boards.
Prior to ALERT there was the Princess Zenebework leprosy hospital (sanatorium), established in 1934, the grounds being donated by the emperor, Haile Selassie.
In the late sixties, ALERT was founded as the referral centre for leprosy patients for Ethiopia and Training Centre for the African continent. The foundation stone for a new hospital was laid by the emperor in 1971 (see photograph). In 1969 the Armauer Hansen Institute was established on the same grounds. This is the institute were scientist try to unravel some of the many questions related to leprosy: why do certain people (not) get leprosy and why do people, once infected, react differently to the disease? How can the disease best be diagnosed and treated? What do we need to know to develop a vaccine? Now the institutes have merged into one (2004) and is it fully under the Ministry of Health of the Federal Government of Ethiopia.
In the past, a leprosy (referral) hospital. Now, a recognised expertise centre for dermatology, plastic-/ reconstructive and orthopaedic surgery, with a separate eye hospital. In the past, 20-25 expatriates: MDs, surgeons, therapists and scientists. Now, just a few (consultants), all the important key positions having been ‘Ethiopianised’. In the past, (international) courses for leprosy only. Now, Leprosy,TB and HIV/AIDS are taught in integrated courses. In the past, leprosy only specific services outside the hospital in the country site. Now, leprosy integrated in the general health service system.
AIDS and TB, as opposed The blogs will always have a very different focus: sometimes more personal like the to leprosy, are killing diseases and numbers are many, many more then those affected by leprosy: leprosy (4 – 5000 new patients every year but of course many, more ‘cured’ but left with deformities and disabilities; Tuberculosis (TB), approximately 450- 500.000-; AIDS, HIV, 1.3 million)
Leprosy is a disease that in numbers of newly affected people, very small in comparison to TB and AIDS/HIV, has not decreased significantly in the last decades. All general health workers need to continue be trained in leprosy and research needs to continue.
Shalom and blessings, Wim