A special study panel is calling for the abolition of the Japanese leprosy prevention law.

The law, drawn up in 1907, requires the mandatory isolation leprosy sufferers.

In its highly critical report the panel commissioned by the Health and Welfare Ministry, calls the law “discriminatory” and “exclusive”.

The isolation of patients, it claims, is an extreme countermeasure to an easily treated disease.

Leprosy is only mildly infectious and has been curable for over fifty years..

The policy, the report maintains, has caused prolonged and unnecessary hardship for thousands of leprosy sufferers and their families.

There are around 6,300 leprosy sufferers in Japan today. Over 5,700 of them are institutionalized.

At the same time, says the reports, the average number of people who contract the disease annually is only ten. The government’s current policy on leprosy would appear to be incompatible with this figure and advances in modern medicine.

In response to increasing demands that the law be either scrapped or overhauled, the government plans to launch a second study group.

Their task will be to investigate the medical and legal ramifications, and to hear the grievances of patients and their families.