From September 19, a new campaign to eradicate leprosy in Maharashtra

The state health minister has announced a policy for eradicating leprosy, in which thousands of personnel will undertake a roughly two-week door-to-door campaigning to identify possible leprosy patients and later treat confirmed patients free of cost.

The new policy, Leprosy Case Detection Campaign (LCDC), was announced by Dr Deepak Sawant, the health minister, on Friday. The LCDC will be held from September 19 to October 4, and will be conducted in a manner similar to the polio campaign.

Around 10,000 people in Maharashtra suffer from leprosy. According to Dr Sawant, “Creating awareness for self-reporting, timely diagnosis and complete MDT (Multi Drug Therapy) treatment of leprosy cases is crucial for ultimate eradication of the disease. At the end of March 2015, there were 88,833 cases on record (in the state) which are undergoing treatment with prevalence rate at national level of 0.69/10,000 population.”

The prevalence rate of leprosy in Maharashtra is 0.83/10,000 population.

The government has identified 16 districts for implementing LCDC on the basis of prevalence rate during the last three years. The population covered would tentatively be 4.98 crore, of which rural population is 3.45 crore and urban population is 1.53 crore. The activities will be conducted at village, district and state level with the help of health workers, Asha and anganwadi volunteers.

A total of 29,675 teams will be formed and trained at local level to work as search teams. Out of this, 18,445 teams will work in rural areas and 11,230 teams will work in urban areas. These teams will conduct door-to-door surveys and examine the people. The concerned medical officer and skin specialists for further treatments will again examine the suspects and confirmed leprosy patients will be provided with MDT treatment free of cost.