Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the treatment of leprosy as a global technoscientific product based on a set of biomedical classifications. It offers a view on how the biomedical cure of leprosy is being currently questioned by patients in Brazil and provides insights into the ways it shapes care and resources.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on literature from STS, this paper explores the treatment of leprosy as a technoscientific product based on a set of biomedical classifications and offer a view on how the cure is currently being challenged by patients. This paper is based on six years of field research, consisting of ethnographic incursions in former leper colonies and hospitals, and interviews with current patients, physicians, and biologists in Brazil. Many patients and hospital staff, point out that they would only recognize the cure of leprosy if the patients do not have to return to hospitals after discharge due to leprosy reactions. Ever since the advent of the Multi-Drug Therapy (MDT) in the 1980s, it has been taken for granted that leprosy can be cured after several months of treatment. However, finishing the MDT regimen does not necessarily lead to the end of the need for health care; or, some might say, to the end of the disease itself. Immunologically mediated episodes known as leprosy reactions may occur in up to 40% of those who have already been discharged, leading to severe and irreversible nerve damage and disabilities. This paper explores how the focus on the break of the transmission chain through MDT, by enacting the biomedical cure of leprosy, might have silenced the lack of knowledge on how to efficiently treat the reactions and have led to a lack of resources to the required life-long health care. It explores the effects a global technology of cure at a local level.