State targets leprosy-free Odisha by 2020

Speaking at a workshop of CDMOs and District Programme Officers (DPMs), the Health Secretary stressed on collective efforts to make Odisha leprosy free by March 2020.

BHUBANESWAR:Health and Family Welfare Secretary Dr Pramod Kumar Meherda has asked health officials  to scale up awareness drive and identification of leprosy affected people in the districts where the prevalence rate is high.

Speaking at a workshop of CDMOs and District Programme Officers (DPMs), the Health Secretary stressed on collective efforts to make Odisha leprosy free by March 2020.

“Several initiatives have been undertaken to reduce grade-II disability cases due to leprosy in the State. We have to achieve the target of less than one case per 10 lakh population by October 2, 2019,” he said.
The prevalence rate of leprosy in the State was 121.4 per 10,000 population during 1982-83 and it came down to 0.65 during 2006-07 due to successful implementation of National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP). But, the prevalence rate slowly went up making it to 1.24 by end of March.
As many as 8004 new cases were found in 2014-15, followed by 10,174 cases in 2015-16, 10,045 in 2016-17, 9576 in 2017-18 and 2252 till July this year.

Twelve districts - Gajapati, Kandhamal, Rayagada, Malkangiri, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Balasore, Puri, Bhadrak, Nayagarh and Bhubaneswar (Khurda) have already achieved it.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com