14K new cases of leprosy in state until Jan: Health Minister Deepak Sawant

Until January 2018, 14,287 new patients of leprosy undergoing multi-therapy treatment have been found in Maharashtra, revealed Health Minister Dr Deepak Sawant.

MLAs Amit Deshmukh, leader of Opposition in the state assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Balasaheb Thorat, Varsha Gaikwad, Praniti Shinde, Kalidas Kolambkar, Abu Azmi, Jaikumar Gore and others raised the issue through a calling attention motion. Deshmukh particularly brought up questions related to the funding to Nagpur district for leprosy eradication.

Sawant replied that in 2004, the then government had declared Maharashtra as a zero leprosy patient state. He informed the state assembly that after this announcement, the posts for leprosy eradication lapsed.

Recalling that the present BJP-Shiv Sena mega alliance government came into power in October 2014, Sawant informed the assembly that a campaign and survey was conducted in a few districts for leprosy in 2015 in which over 4 crore people were tested and almost 1.6 lakh were found to be suspected cases. Out of these suspected patients, 5073 were found to be leprosy cases and the patients are undergoing treatment. After this first survey in 2015, Sawant said there have been two more surveys which found that the total number of patients stood at 14,287 until the end of January this year.