The Union Government of India is carrying out a national sample survey, co-ordinated by the National JALMA Institute for Leprosy & Other Mycobacterial Diseases, to determine the number of persons affected by leprosy in India. The final report should be finalised by the fourth week of July 2011.

 

The conducting of this survey is in line with a recommendation made by a petition submitted to the Rajya Sabha in 2007 to integrate and empower persons affected by leprosy. The petition was submitted by Ram Naik, former Union Minister;

Dr S D Gokhale of the International Leprosy Union; Uday Thakar of Rog Nivaran Samiti, Panvel; Shantaram Bhoir of the Maharashtra Kushthapidit Sanghatana and Bhimrai Madhale, an activist.

 

According to the 138^th Report, of November 2010, on Action Taken by the Government on Observations/Recommendations Contained in its 131^st Report on Petition Praying for Integration and Empowerment of Leprosy Affected Persons a pilot study carried out by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare in the Ramnagar and Fatehganj Blocks of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh revealed a substantial increase in the number of new cases of leprosy. The 138^th Report noted “The Committee has apprehensions that there may be substantial increase of leprosy cases in national survey undertaken by Ministry in various States/UTs”. 

 

In fact on 14^th December 2010, The Times of India reported that 30 new cases of leprosy had been found in a house-to-house survey in major locations across Pune City between 26^th July and 24^th August 2010. Mr Arjun Wangikar, the Medical Officer in charge of the Supervisory Urban Leprosy Unit, said this high number could be attributable to the few non-governmental organisations working there.

 

17 of the 30 cases were multibacillary. Professor M D Gupte, Chair of Epidemiology for the Indian Council for Medical Research, said “17 multibacillary cases means almost 60% of the newly detected cases are in the advanced stage, which is far too high. Usually, when the active surveillance is followed, the proportion of paucibacillary cases is expected to be 90% or more and the multibacillary cases should be less than 10%. Delayed detection could be the major cause of this drastic shift from paucibacillary to multibacillary.“

 

Professor Gupte, also a former chair of the World Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Group on Leprosy, said that people who suspect they have leprosy are meant to visit their doctor. “However, it appears” he said “that the health machinery has become complacent and case detection as well as treatment have been ignored. This led to an accumulation of cases.”

 

Surveys are being conducted in other areas. All findings will be put into a report for submission to the Union Government by the fourth week of July 2011. Thereafter a national policy is to be devised for the integration and empowerment of persons affected by leprosy. It is likely that persons affected by leprosy and non-governmental organisations, which are working for the human rights of persons affected by leprosy and an ending to the discrimination and stigmatisation they face, will be involved in this process.

 

Categories: India