Global leprosy (‎Hansen disease)‎ update, 2023: Elimination of leprosy disease is possible – Time to act!

Overview

In May 1991, the 44th World Health Assembly, adopted a resolution urging Member States to accelerate efforts towards elimination of leprosy as a public health problem by the year 2000. Most countries had achieved this target by 2010. The Global leprosy strategy 2021–2030, a constituent of the neglected tropical diseases (NTD) road map 2021–2030, calls for accelerating action to reach the goal of zero leprosy (zero disease, zero disability and zero stigma and discrimination). This goal required a new paradigm for countries to move beyond the target of “elimination of leprosy as a public health problem” to “elimination of leprosy disease”. In 2023, WHO released technical guidance on interruption of transmission and elimination of leprosy disease. At the core of this guidance is the Leprosy Elimination Framework, which provides a clear pathway through 3 phases, i.e. interruption of transmission, elimination of leprosy disease and post-elimination surveillance, defined in terms of epidemiological milestones. New tools such as the Leprosy elimination monitoring tool and the Leprosy programme and transmission assessment tool have been introduced by WHO to monitor epidemiological situations and assess criteria for verification in 3 domains: political commitment, programme implementation and surveillance. High-quality data collection and reporting are essential to monitor progress towards those milestones.

As part of its core function, WHO collects relevant epidemiological and programmatic data from countries to assess the global leprosy situation and to publish an update. Annual data on leprosy are collected by WHO through a customized application with DHIS2 software. An abridged Excel® format is used to collect data from countries with very few or no cases of leprosy. The reporting year presented here was 2023, although a few countries reported data for a different 12-month period (e.g. India reported for April 2023–March 2024 and Canada for 2022). Some countries have updated data for previous years, and these are highlighted in the text below. Updated data are available in the Global Health Observatory. Epidemiological indicators have been expressed as absolute numbers, proportions and rates. Rates were calculated per million population (total and child). Population estimates (medium variant) were provided by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects 2022.

Data on leprosy for 2023 were received from all 6 WHO regions from 184 countries and territories (out of 221). The number of countries providing information on leprosy has increased significantly over the years. The regional distribution of countries and territories that reported data for 2023 was: 45 in the African Region (AFR), 43 in the Region of the Americas (AMR), 22 in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), 36 in the European Region (EUR),6 11 in the South-East Asia Region (SEAR) and 27 in the Western Pacific Region (WPR). Reports were received from all 23 global priority countries for leprosy.