India can achieve the target of “Leprosy Mukt Bharat” by 2027, three years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the whole of government approach and the society’s support, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya said today.

“India is making progress and new leprosy cases are declining year after year,” he noted at an event to observe the National Anti-Leprosy Day. The theme of this year was “Let us fight Leprosy and make Leprosy a history”.

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Reiterating Mahatma Gandhi’s enduring concern for people suffering from leprosy, Mandaviya noted that the concern and commitment to treat leprosy has its origin in the country’s history.

“His vision was not only to treat them but also to mainstream them in our society. Our efforts to eliminate leprosy from this country under the National Leprosy Eradication Programme is a great tribute to his vision. We are successful in achieving a prevalence rate of 1 case per 10,000 population at the national level in 2005,” he said.

“The need of the hour is consistent efforts to eliminate Leprosy. It is a curable disease, however, if it is not detected and treated at the early stage, it can cause permanent disabilities and deformities among the affected person, leading to discrimination of such persons and their family members in the community,” he added.

Mandaviya said the government has adopted comprehensive measures for the prevention of the disease. Since 2016, renewed efforts have been made for actively detecting cases under the Leprosy Case Detection Campaign (LCDC), he added.

Accentuating the efforts of the National Leprosy Eradication Programme, Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State, said, “Our Leprosy Programme strives to detect and treat cases as early as possible, gives treatment free of cost to prevent the development of disabilities and deformities, medical rehabilitation of those with existing deformities. The welfare allowance has been raised from Rs 8,000 to Rs 12,000 for patients for their reconstructive surgery.”

Highlighting the achievements of the programme, she also informed that the prevalence rate of leprosy has come down from 0.69 per 10,000 population in 2014-15 to 0.45 in 2021-22.  Further, the annual new case detection rate per 100,000 population has come down from 9.73 in 2014-15 to 5.52 in 2021-22.