NAVA RAIPUR — The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has concluded a high-level, two-day national regional workshop in Chhattisgarh aimed at accelerating India’s transition toward zero leprosy transmission.
While India technically achieved leprosy elimination as a national public health problem in 2005, localized transmission remains a significant challenge, with a small cluster of states continuing to carry the bulk of the country’s case burden.
Five States Ground Zero for Half of National Burden
The workshop highlighted a sharp geographical concentration of the disease. Smt. Aradhana Patnaik, Additional Secretary and Mission Director of the National Health Mission (NHM), revealed that just five high-priority states account for nearly 50 percent of India’s total leprosy burden:
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The Endemic Cluster: Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh.
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Sub-National Thresholds: While most of India has reached elimination status, these five states along with the Union Territory of Chandigarh have yet to clear elimination targets at the sub-national level.
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District Hotspots: A significant number of districts in these states report prevalence rates exceeding the critical threshold of 1 case per 10,000 population. This includes 23 districts in Chhattisgarh, 21 in Jharkhand, 18 each in Maharashtra and Odisha, and 10 in Madhya Pradesh.
Inside the Epidemic Numbers (2025–26)
Dr. Sunil V. Gitte, Deputy Director General (Leprosy), laid out the latest epidemiological data, outlining both the current scale of detection and active rehabilitation pipelines:
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New Cases: A total of 91,783 new leprosy cases were detected across India during the 2025–26 cycle, maintaining a national prevalence rate of 0.56 per 10,000 population.
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Vulnerable Demographics: Children accounted for 4.18 percent of these new cases, signaling active, ongoing transmission in communities. Furthermore, 2.12 percent of patients already presented with advanced Grade-2 Disability (G2D) at the time of initial diagnosis, highlighting delays in early detection.
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Rehabilitation Metrics: To counter disabilities, the National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP) executed 1,591 reconstructive surgeries, distributed over 1.03 lakh specialized Micro Cellular Rubber (MCR) protective footwear units, and handed out more than 1.25 lakh self-care medical kits.
The Tactical Blueprint for Zero Transmission
To break the transmission cycle in resistant pockets, the Health Ministry directed state and district officers to move away from passive monitoring and shift to aggressive field-level interventions:
The Post-Exposure Protocol: The core of the new strategy relies on expanding Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) using Single-Dose Rifampicin (SDR). Under this protocol, health workers will scale up rigorous contact tracing around index patients, administering a single preventive dose of the antibiotic to all eligible healthy contacts in vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations.
Additionally, states were instructed to integrate leprosy screenings into existing public health machinery, leveraging the Community-Based Assessment Checklists (CBAC) used by frontline workers, along with school and youth health networks like the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK).
The two-day summit, which brought together nearly 200 public health experts, WHO representatives, and state mission directors, concluded with the drafting of state-specific micro-plans to deploy NHM flexi-pool funds toward targeted case-detection campaigns in hotspot districts.
