Maha govt to launch statewide drive against leprosy from November 17

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government will launch a statewide leprosy case detection campaign from November 17 to December 2, during which health teams will visit households for inspections.

Following the Central Government's guidelines, the state is continuing its annual initiative to identify leprosy patients through an extensive door-to-door survey across all districts.

This year, a population of 8.66 crore people and 1,73,25,000 households has been selected for screening.

A total of 65,832 teams and 13,166 supervisors have been deployed for the campaign.

Each team, comprising one ASHA worker and one male volunteer, will visit 20 houses in rural areas and 25 to 30 houses in urban areas daily to conduct physical examinations.

The teams will survey for 14 consecutive days, said the government release. The decision was taken at a meeting of the State-level Public Awareness Committee for the leprosy detection campaign on Friday.

Suspected patients identified during the survey will be examined, and those diagnosed with leprosy will immediately be started on multi-drug therapy.