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Six years after leprosy officially eliminated in India, explains became officials and doctors warn that spreads the disfiguring disease in poor pockets of the country.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) in India, NATA Menabde, told AFP in an interview that almost one-third of the Indian districts urgent attention needed, to address the spread of new infections.
"There are 209 of 640 the number of new cases exceeds the WHO target of less than 10 new cases per 100,000," she said.
"India is the largest share of the global disease burden of 120 000 new cases per year," she added.
Leprosy, an old disease, which causes lesions on the skin and attacks nerves in the hands and feet, which became a disability, in 2005, according to WHO guidelines on prevalence rates officially eliminated in India explains.
WHO can Governments to explain that leprosy is no longer a public health hazard is reduced the prevalence rate among one case per 10,000 people.
Ten percent of new cases in India are children, said WHO the Menabde.
"The high incidence of children shows that the transfer rate is very high," she said, call it an early warning for the Government.
"it suggests, that can progress against leprosy can also reverse and it grow and India may also lose its position as the disease have eliminated," she said.
Vivek Pai, Director of not-for profit Bombay leprosy project, said that a sense of complacency had crept after 2005 in government policy in the direction of leprosy.
"Changed tracks too soon took their focus and now we are seeing an increase in the cases in certain pockets," he said, citing the case of Maharashtra, India's richest State and home to the national financial center of Mumbai.
"Only a few months back, which Central Leprosy Division found that the number of new cases in Maharashtra from 9-10 per 100,000 2006-07 has now risen 13 per 100,000." It is very worrying is, "he told AFP."
He said that the decline in the funding of public and private donors hurt efforts to combat the disease.
"Don't think agencies who supported us, that it is no longer important." It is a big problem. We do not turn away patients, but we are forced treatment delayed due to funding constraints, "he said."
Pai said that leprosy which most victims come from a low socio-economic background and fear they will be stigmatized by their community when news of her illness is public.
"Many people, with new infections to us come life in busy places such as Dharavi, a huge slum in Mumbai." Hygiene, overcrowding, poverty, all for the environment, which the leprosy thrive contribute ", he said."
"Then there is the stigma around the disease, which is one of the reasons people hesitate to submit and sign, if they have symptoms."
Yohei Sasakawa, who said WHO Goodwill Ambassador for leprosy elimination since 2001, that India had to do more, to the discrimination against leprosy patients handle.
"What we need to do is awareness that it is a medical and social challenge now." There are many invisible customs, those which we must fight, "he told AFP."
"The numerical target was reached in 2005 a great success for India, but it is only a medium-term objective." We do not the battle still won, "he said."
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