Challenge:
In 2001, India remained one of the last eight countries to have cases of leprosy. India accounted for two-thirds of cases of leprosy around the world with close to 400,000 new cases diagnosed each year.
Example of Impact:
The prevalence of leprosy in India was reduced from 5.3 to 1.3 per 10,000 people during the course of the project. Over two million people with symptoms suggestive of leprosy were examined and over 1.2 million people with the disease were treated.
Approach:
• Leprosy services were integrated within the general health care system for long-term sustainability
• The program used a full range of elimination techniques including skin camps in high prevalence areas, school education programs and surveys, and utilization of a variety of health workers to identify and initiate treatment of cases.
• The project decentralized leprosy control activities to the states and integrated leprosy control into general health services in local clinics.
Challenges Remaining:
India must continue to fund the National Leprosy Eradication Program and focus on eliminating leprosy as a public health problem from each of the Indian States and Union Territories with the ultimate goal of eradication.
RSS