Reducing leprosy burden
WHO’s Western Pacific Region eliminated leprosy as a public health problem at the regional level in the late 1980s. Since then, there has been a continuous decline in the number of new cases, with about 4,000 new cases reported in 2019, or about 2% of global cases.
WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office provides technical support to Member States to end leprosy. WHO staff or consultants visit countries to conduct situational assessments, facilitate capacity‐building workshops and advocacy, develop proposals, undertake programmatic reviews or provide programmatic support. Particular areas of focus are community engagement, active case finding in identified high-burden settings and strengthening surveillance. In 2019, WHO visited Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Philippines to support efforts to control leprosy.
The Western Pacific Regional Office has established a regional drug stock-piling mechanism through which countries and areas mainly in the Pacific in need of leprosy drugs can receive supplies quickly. WHO has facilitated the provision of multidrug therapy (MDT) free-of-charge since 1995.
The last Sunday of January every year is World Leprosy Day. WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office works with countries and areas across the Region to use this special day to raise awareness of this curable disease and help reduce stigma.
