![\"cairo](\"http:\/\/www.revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/cairo-fb.jpg\")
<\/a>International Leprosy Congress in Cairo, 1938.<\/p><\/div>\n
Since the 1920s, the medical community realized that the strategy of leprosy control based on segregation and persecution of patients was inefficient and expensive. In the 1930s, Colombian new liberal government incorporated leprosy within the general sanitary institutions, by merging the Bureau of Lazarettos and the National Department of Hygiene.<\/p>\n
The disease-apart approach started to be replaced by a more general public health strategy, which involved controlling other illnesses. Prevention and research played a more influential role, and the new sanitary officials saw leprosy in the light of the economic rationality of expenditures, placing more emphasis on therapies and making them mandatory for all patients. Improvements in leprosy treatment became widely known and available. However, the image of leprosy as a special condition and the practice of segregation were deeply entrenched within the Colombian culture and institutions. The rhetoric changed, but to break with several decades of persecution was a difficult task.<\/p>\n
More on leprosy in Latin America in HCS-Manguinhos:<\/p>\n
Cueto, Marcos and Puente, Jos\u00e9 Carlos de la.\u00a0Vida de leprosa<\/i>:the testimony of a woman living with Hansen\u2019s disease in the Peruvian Amazon, 1947<\/a>.\u00a0Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos<\/i>, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.337-360. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n Maciel, Laurinda Rosa et al.\u00a0Memories and history of Hansen\u2019s disease in\u00a0Brazil\u00a0told by witnesses (1960-2000)<\/a>.\u00a0Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos<\/i>, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.308-336. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n Joseph, D. George.\u00a0\u201cEssentially Christian, eminently philanthropic\u201d: The Mission to Lepers in British India<\/a>. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.247-275. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n Pandya, Shubhada S.\u00a0The First International Leprosy Conference, Berlin, 1897: the politics of segregation<\/a>. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.161-177. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n Hunter Smith III, Thomas.\u00a0A monument to Lazarus: the leprosy hospital of Rio de Janeiro<\/a>. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.143-160. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n White, Cassandra. Carville and Curupaiti: experiences of confinement and community<\/a>. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.123-141. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n Monteiro, Yara Nogueira.\u00a0Prophylaxis and exclusion: compulsory isolation of Hansen\u2019s disease patients in S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a>. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.95-121. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n Benchimol, Jaime L. and S\u00e1, Magali Romero.\u00a0Adolpho Lutz and controversies over the transmission of leprosy by mosquitoes<\/a>. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.49-93. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n Oliveira, Maria Leide Wand-del-Rey de et al.\u00a0Social representation of Hansen\u2019s disease thirty years after the term \u2018leprosy\u2019 was replaced in Brazil<\/a>. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2003, vol.10, suppl.1, p.41-48. ISSN 0104-5970<\/p>\n