Cases of leprosy have been reduced by 90 percent since 1985, but there are still 200,000 new cases every year, over half of those in India. Even though leprosy is not as contagious as people fear, it is difficult to detect before complications arise from dead nerve cells. More frustrating is that the disease is very treatable if caught early. The problem is, doctors don't always look for it.
From NPR:
Read Full Article »In the 1990s, when the annual number of cases was estimated to be nearly a million a year, WHO pushed to end leprosy and set a target goal of fewer than one case per 10,000 people in a country. A lot of countries, including India, met that goal. "Various countries got below one in 10,000. They all patted themselves on the back and said, 'We've solved leprosy,' " says Shrubshole.
But they still had a lot of leprosy cases in regions and pockets of various countries. "It isn't that leprosy has gone away. But people have stopped looking for it." And governments and health care organizations have switched funding from leprosy to other health needs, like malaria, AIDS or heart disease, making it what WHO calls a "neglected disease."
