India Must Target Leprosy Transmission to Meet 2027 Goals

Transmission Targets

India must focus on cutting the transmission of leprosy to meet targets in the National Strategic Plan and Roadmap for Leprosy 2023-2027, even though the overall adult and child prevalence and grade-2 disability rates have dropped over the last decade. By 2005, national prevalence fell below 1 case per 10,000 people, leading the World Health Organization to declare leprosy eliminated as a public health problem in India. The government then made the mistake of folding the leprosy surveillance programme into the general health system, and shorter multi-drug treatment made patients leave formal registers faster while transmission continued.

Screening and Cases

Disability started to rise in the early 2010s, which led to door-to-door screening. In 2025-26, workers screened over 70 crore people in high-burden areas and found 24,367 cases, while ASHA workers flagged nearly 40 lakh suspected cases and confirmed 48,027 cases. Workers also gave single-dose rifampicin to 91.1% of the 16.9 lakh people likely to have been in contact with patients. The drop in disease burden is very uneven, with Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Maharashtra carrying a large share of the national total. The 2025-26 National Leprosy Elimination Programme report shows that only 148 districts achieved interruption of transmission against a goal of 300, and children in India made up about 46% of all cases reported among children globally in 2025.

Challenges and Care

India's overall incidence for 2025-26 went over projections by 41%, child incidence by 91.6%, and the grade-2 disability rate by 34%. The government now uses digital surveillance and is thinking about using the MIP vaccine to help clear the pathogen in highly infectious patients. Stigma still causes many patients to seek care late when nerve damage has already happened, and many doctors misdiagnose the disease as a simple skin condition.

Context

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease that affects the skin and peripheral nerves, but it is fully curable with early multi-stage treatment. Public health experts stress that active community screening and prompt treatment are vital to stop ongoing spread rather than just counting registered patients.