Dr Diana Lockwood from London gave a detailed description of the involvement of the nerves in leprosy. "The classification of involvement of nerves can be into acute, chronic and silent. Although the damage of the nerve is due to the body's immune response, the study of this phenomena has proved to be difficult because of the fact that there is no adequate animal model." Dr Lockwood highlighted the important basic mechanisms in the development of nerve damage and also stressed the need for steroid treatment as the best chance available to salvage and retain nerve function.

The afternoon session was devoted to a continuing medical education programme entitled "The New Frontiers," which evaluated the state of the art in several areas critical to the ultimate control of leprosy. This included community participation, integration of health services, vaccines and their use, standard treatment protocols, recognition of resistant cases and their treatment, the direction for leprosy research in the next millennium with special emphasis on the development of new drugs.

"There is a need for adequate surveillance to be built in the programme so that it may not fail," said Dr Desikan from Wardha, while discussing the monitoring and evaluation for fixed duration drug therapy for leprosy. The need for administration of full courses of medicine was also stressed.

Dr Indira Nath from New Delhi also highlighted the alterations in the body's chemical messengers that result in abnormal functioning of cells of the immune system. "The phenomena is responsible for the development of reactions that are commonly observed during the course of treatment for leprosy,"she said.

Dr Yasin-al-Quatabi from Yemen discussed the treatment of leprosy from its origin in 1943 to the present day. Dr Arvind M. Dhople and Dr K. Prabhakaran from USA discussed the development of newer drugs for the treatment of leprosy and major thrust on leprosy research. Dr G.P. Talwar from Delhi discussed the use of combined drug and vaccine therapy in the control and treatment of leprosy.