13 years after India announced that leprosy had been eliminated as a public health concern, the disease is marking its return.
Far from elimination, it was reported by the Central Leprosy Division of the health ministry that 135,485 new leprosy cases were detected in India in 2017.
While admitting that a large number of leprosy cases still exist in India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said in Parliament in February 2017 that the country will eliminate leprosy by 2018.
However, the government has failed to achieve this target given the new number of cases reported in 2017.
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