WHO publishes global leprosy strategy

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new strategy to achieve interruption of transmission and zero new cases for leprosy in more than 100 countries by 2030. The strategy was developed through a consultative process with major stakeholders during 2019 and 2020, with input from national leprosy programme managers, technical agencies, public health and leprosy experts, funding agencies, and persons or members of communities directly affected by leprosy.

The strategy is built on four principles, which include interventions to:

• implement integrated, country-owned zero leprosy road maps in all endemic countries
• scale-up leprosy prevention alongside integrated active case detection
• manage leprosy and its complications and prevent new disability
• combat stigma and ensure human rights are respected

The key targets of the strategy include:

• 120 countries to achieve zero autochthonous cases
• the number of new cases reduced to around 63,000 worldwide
• the rate of new Grade II disability (G2D) cases reduced to 0.12 per million of the population
• the rate of detection of new cases in children reduced to 0.77 per million of the child population

Source: WHO, 26 April 2021