In 1951 work began on a new central leprosarium at Itesio, and it was envisaged that it now go ahead with the arrival of the BELRA worker, Mr. Clem Wills, from Itu [Annual Report 1951, p.5]. In 1952 the buildings were well advanced, and a senior doctor in the Kenyan Government Service expressed his willingness to go as the Medical Officer. Negotiations were also under way to establish a Research Unit, in co-operation with the East Africa High Commission. When established, it was felt that this would meet a long felt need for such a unit, both in order to increase research facilities and to act as a central training institution, which was then urgently required. Steady progress was made by the joint efforts of the local Government engineers and the BELRA supervisor, Clem Wills. Clem moved into the house built for him, releasing the temporary rondavel for the BELRA nurse, Miss Owen. A brick-kiln and a sawyers’ yard were completed, farmland cleared, a vein of limestone developed, and the nucleus of a dairy-herd acquired. Most important of all, some 2,500 patients were already registered, scores coming weekly from over 15 miles away, though facilities for their treatment were still makeshift [Annual Report 1952 pp. 5, 8]. This centre was founded by the Kenyan Government and BELRA and was connected with the Kenya Government Leprosarium at Alupe situated on the border-line between Kenya and Uganda. It was seen as a happy augury for the success of the enterprise that in the year of Her Majesty’s Coronation the establishment of the first leprosy research centre in Eastern Africa should have been approved by the East Africa High Commission. The capital cost, for which BELRA accepted the liability, was some £20,000. In 1953 Dr. Harden Smith, a retired Government Medical Officer with a deep knowledge of the country, accepted the Government appointment of Medical Superintendent. With Mrs. Haden Smith as well as Miss Owen (BELRA) as trained nurses, full-scale and methodical treatment started. Resident patients already numbered 300 and there were another 3,000 regular attendants at the clinics. Meanwhile, Mr. Wills was busy opening up the area with roads, farms, allotments and building works of various kinds. But the most important development was that Dr. James Ross Innes, the Inter-territorial Leprologist, took up quarters on the site chosen for the establishment of the BELRA-sponsored East African Research Centre of which he was appointed Director, and he was closely supervising its construction [Annual Report 1953, pp. 3 8].

Itesio Research Centre, Kenya

In this month of December, 1953, the foundations are laid for the first buildings of this new centre, and a constructive idea of BELRA and of the East African governments will come to fruition. This constructive idea is that a centre for leprosy research is needed for the eastern side of Africa, and that the centre should be sited in one of the existing leprosaria of East Africa. Other centres for leprosy research exist in the world, and out of their fine work pours a stream of new knowledge which is made available to all the world, as well as being immediately available in the particular country containing the research centre. No one in East Africa could fail to entertain the desire to take up part of the burden of world research in leprosy, linked with a clear perception of the difficulties of conducting a leprosy control campaign without a research centre somewhere, which could seek the answer to problems peculiar to East Africa, while not forgetting work on problems common to all leprosy campaigns.

The idea was born and approved by all, and since 1951 the struggle began to bring it to reality. In this the visits to East Africa of the General Secretary and the Medical Secretary of BELRA were of great help and comfort. However, the young project ran up against an extraordinary number of difficulties and “red herrings”, and it has taken two years before the stage of erection of the buildings has arrived.

The finance of the undertaking has been largely made secure by large contributions from BELRA, and from the government side some capital and an appreciable amount recurrent cost are provided. It is fair to say, however, that without the munificent help of BELRA the project would never have been established, and full credit must always be accorded to BELRA at all times. The new research centre will be run under the auspices of the governments, and it is worth while emphasising now and always the very important role played by BELRA in its establishment.

The site of the new East African Research Centre has been chosen, and it will be contained within the grounds of the Itesio Leprosarium of The Kenya Government. This is itself a new institution, being the first new piece of work started by the Kenya Government in its determination to improve and develop its anti-leprosy work. New though Itesio is, after the wonderful pioneer work of Mr. and Mrs. C. Wills (BELRA workers) it has already made tremendous strides. An apparently inexhaustible supply of patients seek for admission, its main buildings are in existence, its nurse (Miss Maisie Owens, BELRA) and its doctor (Dr. W. Harden-Smith) have taken up residence and are busily at work. Roughly 75 miles to the north-west and south-west of Itesio lie the well-established leprosaria of Kumi and Buluba and about 80 miles away lies the only University College in East Africa, that at Makerere, Kampala. There is little room for doubt that Itesio will prove a most suitable “home” for the new leprosy research centre, and there is not the slightest doubt that a warm welcome from Itesio, all who run it and all who administer it, awaits the research centre, and the fullest of co-operation.

The East African Leprosy Research Centre will start modestly as regards personnel. The writer will take charge and very soon steps will be taken to add a first-grade laboratory technician, a secretary, a clerk, and subordinate staff. Looking to the future, one or more medical research workers will be needed. As all who work abroad know, development will depend on housing. The provision of laboratories and equipment always turns out much less difficult than providing enough finance for enough houses for all the workers needed.

The aims of the new research centre? Simply this, to get to work on research projects of short-term and long-term type, according to advice from other workers, according to the needs of East Africa, and according to common-sense and inspiration. The recent International Congress of Leprosy at Madrid has been a rich pabulum for suggestive lines of research. In the subject of leprosy, there is so much still to be found out. [James Ross Innes, BELRA and EAHC, BELRA Quarterly magazine, January 1954 p.11]

In 1954 the first members of staff for the Research Centre, Mr. & Mrs. E. Bishop, began work as Laboratory Superintendent and Secretary. The BELRA stimulus was applied here by providing £18,500 towards the cost of buildings and equipment and guaranteeing the equivalent of salaries and allowances of all three European members of the permanent staff for the first five years. Assets provided from BELRA funds during the year included a fully-equipped mobile laboratory for Dr. Ross Innes’ use on tours outside the centre, and the more extensive basic equipment for the permanent laboratory at Itesio itself [Annual Report 1954 p. 8]. In 1955 the laboratory and other buildings of the research centre were completed and research work began [Annual Report 1955 p.8].

Dr. Ross Innes was succeeded at Itesio by Dr. John Garrod, who had previously been the leprosy specialist in Northern Rhodesia [Annual Report 1956, p.3]. Mr. M.H. Smith, biochemist at Itesio came on leave in 1957 and resigned. BELRA made a grant of £4,000 for connecting the Research Station up with the Uganda electric power system in 1957 [Annual Report 1957, p.5]. In 1958 BELRA continued paying £4,000 per year (or half the cost of the actual expenditure up to a maximum of £4,000) to the East Africa High Commission towards the cost of maintaining Itesio for a further four years. Mr. Gordon Ellard, a biochemist, was sent out in October to replace Mr. Smith [Annual Report 1958, p.5]. In 1959 the name of the centre changed to Alupe.

Gordon Ellard made good progress in research into new curative drugs which had been tried out against leprosy. In February 1961 he went home on leave and did not return [Annual Report 1960, p.7]. In his report up to June 1960, Dr. Garrod gave an insight into the valuable work of the centre: Drug trials had been carried out using Diphenyl Thiourea, Diamino Diphenyl Sulphone (DDS), and Diethyl Dithilisophthalate (used in various combinations with the previous two). Arrangements were made in 1959 for medical supervision of the leprosarium to be carried out by the Director of the Research Centre. This enabled the Kenya Medical Department to withdraw their Medical Officer. Unfortunately they found difficulty in maintaining nursing staff at the centre which resulted in the work entailed in giving medical supervision being greater than was originally thought. This meant that work outside the settlement had to be stopped for the time being [Annual Report, 1960]. During 1961 work was done with labelled diphenylthiourea and injectable forms of the same drug. Studies were also made with labelled Etisul, and on DDSo, and investigations at present are being carried on with the Ethionamide, Vadrine, Methimazole, Sulphamethoxypyrazine, and in some aspects of immunology and bacteriology. It was found possible to demonstrate acid-fast bacilli in the venous blood of leprosy patients, by making thick films, then dehaemoglobinising, then staining with Ziehl-Neelsen stain [Annual Report 1961 p.13].

In 1962 a grant of £9,000 was made to help with the cost of providing an operating theatre and extra housing for patients and staff. In addition, the normal recurring grant of £4,000 was made towards the cost of maintaining this research centre. In April 1962 Dr. Garrod elected to retire under the compensation scheme introduced when the functions of the East Africa High Commission were taken over by the East African Common Services Organisation. No successor was immediately available and there was at the time no Kenya Government medical officer at the leprosarium. Drug trials had to cease for lack of adequate clinical surveillance and all patients were put on to standard treatment with DDS; their laboratory records were however maintained by the laboratory technician who remained in charge of the centre. Mr. Rhodes-Jones carried on the work until the end of January 1963 when Dr. C.M. Ross, OBE was appointed as the new director. The Centre continued to give laboratory service to the leprosarium during the year. Apart from routine laboratory examinations, 1,182 multiple skin smears were taken and examined for M.leprae. Six dressers from South and Central Nyanza were attached to the centre for six weeks to learn the rudiments of leprosy diagnosis and treatment [Annual Report 1962 pp. 7 and 15-16]. In 1963 the Leprosarium was under the control of the Kenyan Government and a grant of £9,030 was made with money provided by OXFAM to complete the operating theatre and extra housing, for which a similar sum had been given in 1962 by BELRA. A further grant of £4,000 was made by BELRA for general research work.

The year 1963 brought success in treating the in-patients and out-patients of the leprosarium, and also in treating the patients in the clinics which were supervised by the Research Centre. Patients were treated according to the type of their disease, their conditions and age; lepra reaction and fever was a rare occurrence in the leprosarium; a low scale of Dapsone dosage was introduced to reduce reaction, which was very common in the Kenyan patients treated at the Health Centres where high doses of Dapsone were given [Annual Report 1963, pp. 8-9, 17]. In 1964 the grant to Alupe was reduced to £2,000. The centre suffered a great loss in the death of Dr. Ross, who died in Nairobi on 24 th June 1964. Apart from the personal loss by all leprologists and patients, this loss of a director fell heavily on the research centre which was in the process of adaptation. Dr. Y. Otsyula, a Kenyan, was appointed as Director, but unfortunately he had no research assistants and no senior laboratory technician [Annual Report 1964, p. 14].

No more is head of the centre after this, so presumably BELRA stopped providing funding when it was taken over completely by the Kenyan Government.

A research institute, the East African Leprosy Research Centre, was also based here.

BELRA/LEPRA workers associated with this leprosarium:
Mr Clem Wills, lay worker, 1951-1955
Dr & Mrs Harden-Smith, doctor/nurse, 1953
Miss Maisie Owen, nurse, 1953
Dr James Ross Innes, doctor, 1953
Mr E Bishop, biochemist, 1954
Mr Michael Smith, biochemist, 1956-1957
Mr Gordon Ellard, biochemist, 1958-1961