Leprosy Case Detection Campaign (LCDC): An Approach to Accelerate Progress to Achieve Leprosy Free India

ABSTRACT

The Elimination of Leprosy at National level was achieved in the month of December, 2005, by India. Afterward it was observed that trend of two important indicators of NLEP i.e. Annual New Case Detection Rate (ANCDR) and Prevalence Rate (PR) are almost static since 2005–2006, whereas the percentage of Grade II disability (G2D) amongst new cases detected showed a rising trend, which indicated delayed detection of cases and quantum of cases lying undetected/ hidden in the community. Hence, in order to address the issues being faced by programme an innovative approach for hidden case detection i.e., Leprosy Case Detection Campaign (LCDC) was introduced by Central Leprosy Division (CLD), Directorate General of Health Services (Dte.GHS), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Govt of India. This novel concept is first of its kind in the world as it has various unique features i.e., institutional framework at various administrative levels for planning, implementation and concurrent review of LCDC, formulation and training of search teams, Micro plan preparation, IEC activities, supervision and monitoring by identified supervisors and report submission. The activity was piloted in the limited areas of 50 districts of 7 states during March-April 2016 and in September, 2016 it was expanded to 163 districts of 20 States/ UTs to cover around 360 million population. During 2017, it was implemented in 255 districts of 23 States/ UTs to cover population of around 390 million. These efforts have yielded the desired result which is evident from the fact that approximately 67000 new leprosy cases were detected during the LCDCs in these 2 years (2016-17 & 2017-18) and number of G2D cases per million population also declined by more than 25%, from 4.48 cases per million in 2014-15 to 3.34 cases per million in 2017-18. In addition to the above, the benefits achieved through LCDCs are generation of large number of trained manpower who can suspect, identify leprosy cases and can carry out focussed IEC regarding leprosy.