Leprosy eradication campaign launched

Campaign will cover 1,656 blocks of 149 endemic districts across 20 states

The Union Health Ministry has launched a massive 2 week campaign aimed at eradicating leprosy in 149 endemic districts across 20 states where the prevalence rate of the disease is more than one case per 10,000 population.

The 'Leprosy Case Detection Campaign' (LCDC) launched on Monday will cover 1,656 blocks of these districts and screen a total of 32 crore people for leprosy.

A total of 297,604 teams comprising one female ASHA worker and one male volunteer each would visit every house in their allotted area and screen all the family members for leprosy.

The states which the LCDC will cover are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Delhi and Lakshadweep.

"The districts having a prevalence rate of more than one case per 10,000 population in any of the last three years have been included in this campaign," an official statement said.

The campaign has been launched in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to eradicate Leprosy from India following which Health Minister J P Nadda reviewed the National Leprosy Eradication Programme and asked for the launch of the campaign.

"House to house visits will be done by the search teams according to the micro plan prepared for the local area to detect hidden and undetected leprosy cases," the statement said.

"The objective of the campaign is the early detection of leprosy in affected persons so that they can be saved from physical disability and deformity by providing them timely treatment and thus also halting the transmission of disease at the community level," it said.

The first LCDC was launched during March-April in 50 districts of the seven states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh where a population of about 6.8 crore was covered.

A total of 65,427 suspected cases were identified out of which 4,120 were later confirmed during the campaign, the statement added.