Leprosy -India

Leprosy currently affects approximately a quarter of a million people throughout the world, with 70% of these cases occurring in India.[1] Cases of leprosy in India have decreased dramatically from 5,000,000 cases in 1985 to 213,000 cases in 2009. This significant decrease is largely due to the effectiveness of multi-drug therapy (MDT) that was developed in 1981. The prevalence of leprosy in India is now less than 1 case in 10,000 individuals, meeting the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for leprosy elimination. Yet the WHO criterion for elimination is not met in all areas of the country; rural areas and urban slums continue to experience up to five times the number of leprosy cases as the national average

Leprosy is one of the least infectious diseases mainly because nearly all of the population have natural immunity against it.[3] Nevertheless, stigma against the disease due to its disfiguring effects causes its victims to be isolated and shunned. Leprosy is also the leading cause of permanent disability in the world and is primarily a disease of the poor.
The disease is now readily treatable with multi-drug therapy, which combines three drugs to kill the pathogen and cure the patient.[4] If MDT is used in the early stages of infection, disability and disfigurement can be avoided. Unfortunately, even with these facts, individuals with leprosy are still shunned, isolated, and stigmatized so that the fear of leprosy is worse than the disease itself

ndia is considered the point of origin of leprosy with skeletal evidence of the disease dating to 2000 B.C.[6] the disease is thought to have spread through trade and war to other parts of Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and later Europe and the Americas. In ancient Indian society, individuals suffering from leprosy were alienated because the disease was chronic, contagious, resulted in disfigurement, had no cure at the time, and was associated with sin.[7] In colonial India, the government enacted...