The number of patients have increased in recent years, from one (in 2005) to two per 10,000. In a PIME-run leper colony, Swarga Dwar (Gate of Heaven) ashram, there are two to three new cases per week. Local sources told AsiaNews, "The wave of migration from the countryside to the cities has created new poor, who are more likely to get leprosy."

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Leprosy is making a comeback in India amid government indifference. This year, 36 districts reported two or more cases per 10,000 people. Leprosy prevalence had dropped below one case for every 10,000 people in 2005, allowing the country to claim elimination; however, local sources, anonymous for security reasons, told AsiaNews "the situation is quite different now and the government has to accept it if they really want to defeat the disease."

People working with leprosy patients have confirmed a steady rise in the number of leprosy cases. In a dispensary set up by the Swarga Dwar (Gate of Heaven) ashram, a leper colony established in 1983 by the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), an average two or three new patients show up every week with the infection.

"Recently," Fr Vijaya Kumar Rayarala told AsiaNews, "we had a baby, born in a slum to leper parents. We found a lesion just above the shoulders, a typical symptom of the disease. After a six-month treatment, it was  gone and child was healed. "

Other local sources told AsiaNews that "cases had declined for a certain period, but that is no longer the case today."

The problem with leprosy is the lack of preventive measures and that it can affect anyone. Poverty, lack of cleanliness and hygiene, low quality and lack of food allow the bacterium that causes leprosy to spread. Since the disease has an incubation period of several years, it is even more difficult to stop it from spreading.

"In big cities like Mumbai," the sources noted, "there is a construction boom that has sparked a new wave of migration. Entrepreneurs need workers from the villages and many people move to the city. They are paid very little, do not have a home and end up living under a bridge. They often go hungry, and when they do have food, they cook it outdoors, breathing in dust and dirt. Many children are left alone because their parents have to work. This favours the onset of the disease, but no one does any checking. Then these people go home, and lo and behold, leprosy is back."

"The problem," the sources explained, "is that the government does not want to accept this reality, that we have yet to eradicate leprosy. As long as the authorities pretend that it is already gone, we cannot go ahead with support programmes for the sick and also for new immigrants." (GM)

• india
• mumbai
• leprosy
• migration
• urbanisation
• rise