Background: Leprosy is known as the neglected tropical disease. In spite of all the measures taken, it remains as a basic concern in public health in underdeveloped and developing countries like India and Brazil. Leprosy was declared eliminated from India in 2006, but recent reports point out the increase in the newly detected cases over past few years.
Aim: To study the trend and patterns of epidemiological indicators of leprosy in the district of central India over past five years.
Methodology: This is a retrospective study of past five years (2015- 2020) data collected from the District Health Office, Leprosy division. We got the complete line listing data from 2017 to 2020 and data of the NLEP (National Leprosy Elimination Program) indicators from 2015 to 2020. An analysis was done on different epidemiological and operational indicators to know the trends and pattern of Leprosy.
Results: The total number of cases from 2017 t0 2020 were 1140. Out of these, 86.67% belonged to rural areas, and 53.59% were males. The maximum number of cases were in the 0-12 years age group (19.91%) followed by 13-18 age group (19.47%). Children (0-18 years) contributed to about 39.38% of the new cases. 9.6% of the total cases were registered of having deformities. Among which a high proportion of the patients had some form of deformity prior to initiation of treatment (61.8%). The median duration for completion of treatment among MB cases was 319 days and among PB cases was 145 days. On analysis of the year wise-indicators of the NLEP program of the district for last five years, it’s found evident that there is constant increase in the annual case detection rate (ANCDR),prevalence rate from 2017. The percentage of the child case among the newly detected cases was found maximum in 2018-19. The percentage of multibacillary cases and the proportion of female cases were maximum in 2019-20. It was observed that most of the programmatic indicators saw an improvement from 2015 till 2017-18. However, a worsening of the indicators was seen post 2018 for almost all of them.
Implications/conclusions: There is an ongoing active transmission of infection as suggested by the high caseloads among children and the increasing ANCDR and Prevalence rates. Aggressive health education and awareness is needed to achieve the elimination in the country.
}, year = {2023}, journal = {World Journal of Pharmaceutical Research}, volume = {12}, pages = {766-773}, issn = {2277– 7105}, url = {https://www.wjpr.net/abstract_file/21783}, language = {Eng}, }