Present leprosy situation in India and the decade long experience of this correspondent

Abstract

Leprosy, which was known to ancient India as "Kustha Roga" is thought to be its origin from India also. It is, still, a major public health problem in India affecting many people every year. India is, now, having maximum numbers of leprosy cases worldwide and accounts for 67% of total prevalence and 73% of total new case detection. Huge numbers of new cases have been detected in recent years (Last year new cases were 782501) because of adoption of new strategy, Modified Leprosy Elimination campaign (MLEC), and effective health education campaign. Presently, 70% of the total new caseloads of India are from five most heavily infected states. There is significant improvement in the overall situation as is evident from steady decline of prevalence rate from 38.6 cases per 10,000 population in 1985 to 5.0 per 10,000 in 1999.