OneWorld.net (U.S.)

New Delhi: Experts have raised concerns over undue haste in declaring India a `leprosy free country’ as this will slacken the vigil against the disease, which still might be lurking in various parts of the country.

At a press conference by The Leprosy Mission Trust (TLM), a leading non-governmental organisation (NGO) working on leprosy, doctors and experts discussed the prevelance of the disease in India, which is also called Hansen’s disease.

The Head of TLM, CS Walter said, “India might achieve the prevalence level of one new case in every 10,000 population - which is often understood as the prevalence level to declare the population leprosy free - by this year end. But, there would be states and districts, which might not achieve that level. Considering this scenario, it may not be a good idea to declare India as leprosy free country and stop all leprosy programmes in the country.”

Dr JP Muliyil, a leprologist from CMC, Vellore said the country has made progress in tackling the disease. He added: “When India launched the National Leprosy Programme, we only had one drug that was available for treatment. Now we have Multi Drug Therapy (MDT) available across the country and leprosy care is integrated in primary health centres (PHCs), but still we detected 400,000 new cases last year.”

Dr Muliyil added that since there is no vaccine for the disease, it is unlikely that the disease can be eradicated from the country. He also pointed toward factors that could lead to low detection rates in the affected cases.

Dr PK Gopal of IDEA India highlighted the importance of working with people on removing discrimination that still persisted against people who had been cured of leprosy. He added that grave discrimination and stigma, which is still practiced in India against people suffering from leprosy, is a violation of the human rights of leprosy-affected people, cured-people as well as their children. India has the highest number of people with leprosy.

There are loads of misconceptions on causes, early signs, transmission and cure of leprosy among the people. A video CD featuring the discrimination against lepers around the world was also released during the press conference.