Why is the elimination of leprosy as a public health problem feasible?
Leprosy is one of the few infectious diseases to meet the strict criteria for elimination: There is only one source of infection: untreated, infected human beings. Practical and simple diagnostic tools are available: leprosy can be diagnosed on clinical signs alone. The availability of an effective intervention to interrupt its transmission: multidrug therapy (MDT). Under natural conditions, incident cases (new cases in which the disease has recently developed) make up only a small fraction of the prevalence pool. Below a certain level of prevalence, any resurgence of the disease is very unlikely. Unlike tuberculosis, the leprosy situation does not appear to be adversely affected by HIV infection.
