India records 3,832 new child leprosy cases in 2025-26
India recorded 3,832 new leprosy cases among children in 2025-26, exceeding the national programme’s target by 91.6%, according to the latest annual report. The figures come as the country seeks to interrupt transmission at district level by 2027, while 37 children were diagnosed with Grade-2 disability.
India recorded 3,832 new leprosy cases among children in 2025-26, including 37 cases involving Grade-2 disability at diagnosis, according to the latest annual report of the National Leprosy Eradication Programme. The child caseload was 91.6% above the programme’s target of 2,000 cases. India is pursuing a national plan that aims to interrupt transmission at district level by 2027.
Under that plan, a district must record no new indigenous child cases for five consecutive years to meet the definition. The World Health Organisation considers new cases among children under 15 an indicator of recent transmission. Grade-2 disability among newly diagnosed patients is regarded as a sign of delayed detection; when it occurs among children, the WHO says it can indicate both delayed diagnosis and ongoing transmission.
India recorded 91,783 new leprosy cases overall during the reporting period, with a prevalence rate of 0.56 per 10,000 people. There were 1,945 patients with Grade-2 disability at diagnosis, representing 2.12% of newly detected cases. The national Grade-2 disability rate was 1.34 per million, above the programme’s target of less than one per million.
The WHO’s latest global update also listed India as the country with the largest number of newly detected cases in 2025, followed by Brazil and Indonesia. The source material says India’s figures cover April 2025 to March 2026, although the WHO table presents them in its 2025 global data. Dr Kabir Sardana of Delhi’s ABVIMS-Dr RML Hospital attributed the continuing burden partly to weaknesses in case detection.
The Health Ministry has identified high-endemic and hard-to-reach areas for intensified detection, including household contact surveys and targeted campaigns. Child detections have fallen from more than 11,000 annually in the middle of the previous decade, but the decline has not been consistent. The programme also continues to identify stigma and discrimination as concerns.
Leprosy is curable with multidrug therapy, which is provided free through public-health programmes.
This independently written report is based on information supplied by the named publisher. Vertrix News has not independently verified the source report.