The World Health Organization (WHO) Wednesday launched anew global strategy for a world free of leprosy, calling for strongercommitments and accelerated efforts to stop disease transmission and endassociated discrimination and stigma. The strategy aims to, by 2020,reduce to zero the number of children diagnosed with leprosy and relatedphysical deformities; reduce the rate of newly-diagnosed leprosy patients withvisible deformities to less than one per million; and ensure that alllegislation that allows for discrimination on the basis of leprosy isoverturned. "A strategy can only be as good asits implementation," Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO regional director for SoutheastAsia, said in New Delhi at the launch of the global strategy for 2016 to 2020. "The new global strategy is guided by theprinciples of initiating action, ensuring accountability and promotinginclusivity. These principles must beembedded in all aspects of leprosy control efforts." Leprosy was eliminated globally in2000 with the disease prevalence rate dropping to below one per 10,000populations. Though all countries have achievedthe rate at the national level, at the sub-national level, it remains anunfinished agenda. Of the 213,899 new cases in 2014, 94percent were reported from 13 countries – Bangladesh, Brazil, DemocraticRepublic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Nepal,Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania. India, Brazil, and Indonesia account for 81percent of the newly diagnosed and reported cases globally.
