Leading Article

Sri Lanka has made much progress in the elimination of leprosy. The Multi Drug Therapy (MDT) recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) 1 was introduced and expanded from 1982. A social marketing campaign, an awareness campaign to educate the general public about the early signs of leprosy and dispel misconceptions about the disease, was launched in 1990 2,3,4 . These have resulted in achieving the elimination target set by the WHO, of one case per 10,000 population for the whole country, in 1995, five years ahead of the targeted year of 2000. Since 2001, the leprosy services are being completely integrated with the general health services 5,6 . The purpose of this was to enable the diagnosis and treatment of the remaining small number of cases by empowering medical officers to diagnose, treat and notify all remaining patients with leprosy. This would hopefully result in the detection and treatment of leprosy in the remaining pockets in the country, especially in the Southern, Western, Northwestern Northern and Eastern areas of the country. Thus, leprosy could be eliminated at a subnational level and it would be possible to sustain the achievements gained.