Maha govt to launch statewide drive against leprosy from November 17

Mumbai, Nov 15 (IANS) The Maharashtra government will launch a statewide leprosy case detection campaign from November 17 to December 2, during which health teams will visit households for inspections.

Following the Central Government’s guidelines, the state is continuing its annual initiative to identify leprosy patients through an extensive door-to-door survey across all districts.

This year, a population of 8.66 crore people and 1,73,25,000 households has been selected for screening.

A total of 65,832 teams and 13,166 supervisors have been deployed for the campaign.

Each team, comprising one ASHA worker and one male volunteer, will visit 20 houses in rural areas and 25 to 30 houses in urban areas daily to conduct physical examinations.

The teams will survey for 14 consecutive days, said the government release. The decision was taken at a meeting of the State-level Public Awareness Committee for the leprosy detection campaign on Friday.

Suspected patients identified during the survey will be examined, and those diagnosed with leprosy will immediately be started on multi-drug therapy.

The campaign aims to detect hidden or undiagnosed cases, bring patients under treatment to break the chain of transmission, increase public awareness about leprosy, and strengthen efforts toward achieving the goal of ‘zero leprosy transmission’ by 2027.

To ensure effective implementation, training workshops and coordination committee meetings are being conducted at the state, district, and block levels, along with team training sessions at primary health centres, according to the government release.

To prevent the spread of leprosy and ensure timely treatment, the Maharashtra Government has recently declared leprosy a ‘Notifiable Disease’.

All doctors and health institutions are now required to report every confirmed case of leprosy to the respective District Health Office, Assistant Director of Health Services (Leprosy), and local civic health authorities within two weeks of diagnosis.

Public Health and Family Welfare Minister Prakash Abitkar has written to all district guardian ministers, district collectors, and village sarpanches, urging them to ensure the success of this campaign.

He has appealed to all administrative bodies to diagnose the maximum number of leprosy patients in their respective districts and to implement the campaign effectively under their leadership.

Secretary of the Health Department Nipun Vinayak has also reviewed the campaign and issued directives to district collectors to ensure its successful execution.

Citizens have been urged to cooperate, and the Health Department has reiterated that treatment for leprosy is free, effective, and available at all government health centres, said the government release.

The state government’s announcement comes days after the World Health Organisation’s Global TB Report 2025 said that India’s TB incidence (new cases emerging each year) reduced by 21 per cent – from 237 per lakh population in 2015 to 187 per lakh population in 2024 – over almost double the pace of the decline observed globally at 12 per cent.

This is one of the highest declines in the TB incidences globally, outpacing reductions noted among other high-burden countries.

Since its launch in December 2024, India’s flagship TB elimination mission, the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, has achieved extensive reach, screening over 19 crore vulnerable individuals for TB across the country, leading to the detection of over 24.5 lakh TB patients, including 8.61 lakh asymptomatic TB cases.

This proactive approach draws on both global and local evidence underscoring the prevalence of asymptomatic (sub-clinical) TB in high-burden settings, a release issued by the Union Ministry of Health said.

–IANS

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