Leprosy still afflicts Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh

Leprosy is still prevalent in certain parts of India, despite the country’s achievements in eradicating the infectious disease.

Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are still having incidences of leprosy disease afflicting several people, reports indicate.

Through intensive campaigns India could reduce the incidence of leprosy cases to extremely low levels -below one for every 10,000 population — and achieved the elimination target by 2005.

However, even after five years achieving the target the four states are still suffering from the burden and stigma of the contagious disease.

Among the states, Chhattisgarh had 2.33 leprosy patients for every 10,000 population and Bihar had 1.21 patients in the same sample size, till the end of January 2010. The incidence was 1.09 for Jharkhand and 1.01 for West Bengal.

Currently, around 91,810 people are suffering from leprosy across India. While Bihar has 12,246 affected people, West Bengal is home to 9,193 such patients. In Chhattisgarh, the figure is 5,528 and in Jharkhand there are 3,466 people affected with leprosy.

“India has done a good job but four states are yet to achieve the target. I am working for leprosy-affected people and will not feel relieved until these states in eastern India achieve the goal,” Yohei Sasakawa, the World Health Organisation (WHO) goodwill ambassador on leprosy, was quoted as saying.

The government has started the multi-drug therapy (MDT) in the southern states in the mid-1980s. But Bihar and all other northern states got multi-drug regimen in 1990s.

Leprosy is a chronic disease caused by a bacillus, Mycobacterium leprae, an acid-fast, rod-shaped bacillus. More than 213 000 people mainly in Asia and Africa are infected, with approximately 249 000 new cases reported in 2008, official figures show.

M. leprae multiplies very slowly and the incubation period of the disease is about five years. Symptoms can take as long as 20 years to appear.

Leprosy is not highly infectious. It is transmitted via droplets, from the nose and mouth, during close and frequent contacts with untreated cases.

Untreated, leprosy can cause progressive and permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs and eyes. Early diagnosis and treatment with multidrug therapy (MDT) remain the key elements in eliminating the disease as a public health concern.

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, an acid-fast, rod-shaped bacillus. The disease mainly affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, mucosa of the upper respiratory tract and also the eyes, apart from some other structures.

Leprosy is curable and treatment provided in the early stages averts disability.

Multidrug therapy (MDT) treatment has been made available by WHO free of charge to all patients worldwide since 1995, and provides a simple yet highly effective cure for all types of leprosy.

Pockets of high endemicity still remain in some areas of Angola, Brazil, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal, and the United Republic of Tanzania.

The first breakthrough in leprosy treatment occurred in the 1940s with the development of the drug dapsone, which arrested the disease. But the duration of the treatment was many years, even a lifetime, making it difficult for patients to follow.

In the 1960s, M. leprae started to develop resistance to dapsone, the world’s only known anti-leprosy drug at that time. In the early 1960s, rifampicin and clofazimine, the other two components of MDT, were discovered.

In 1981, a World Health Organization (WHO) Study Group recommended multidrug therapy (MDT). MDT consists of 3 drugs: dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine and this drug combination kills the pathogen and cures the patient.

Since 1995, WHO provides free MDT for all patients in the world, initially through the drug fund provided by the Nippon Foundation and since 2000, through the MDT donation provided by

In 1991 WHO’s governing body, the World Health Assembly (WHA) passed a resolution to eliminate leprosy as a public health problem by the year 2000.

Elimination of leprosy as a public health problem is defined as a prevalence rate of less than one case per 10 000 persons.

The target was achieved on time and the widespread use of MDT reduced the disease burden dramatically.