Leprosy is making a comeback in India, but the govt wants to deny it

Of the new cases detected, nearly half (67,160) have been diagnosed at an advanced stage

Leprosy is back in India. Health officials and activists celebrated 13 years ago when India announced that leprosy had been eliminated as a public health concern. Alarm bells rang as the Central Leprosy Division of the health ministry reported that 135,485 new leprosy cases were detected in India in 2017. That meant every four minutes somebody was diagnosed with leprosy in India. This is nowhere close to elimination.

India will eliminate leprosy by 2018, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told parliament in a budget