Impact of Migration on Epidemiology and Control of Leprosy

Migration has been a major influencing factor facilitating movement of disease between endemic and nonendemic areas. Both internal migration and global immigration contributes to spread to disease to nonendemic areas. This review discusses the findings of studies carried out all over the world regarding the role of migration in leprosy. It focuses on factors contributing to migration within the country, effect of migration on leprosy control programme, migration related factors adding to stigma and leading to administrative problems in leprosy control programmes. Migration of leprosy patients affects the opportunities to seek timely treatment at other places due lack of leprosy treatment facilities or awareness among the users. This review analyses the published studies available in PubMed and news articles related to migration in Leprosy. Out of total 2506 search results, only 18 were found to be relevant. In these studies migration has been identified as one of the important obstacles in achieving elimination of leprosy as the affected individuals may continue to spread the disease and themselves may suffer from disabilities with social consequences. The review also finds paucity of scientific studies carried out to study the role of migration in leprosy at present. There is clear need to focus on in depth studies on this aspect in the contemporary scenario for achieving the goal of world without leprosy.