We are continuing our special focus on India for this issue. In India, there were 473,658

new cases worldwide. The numbers prompt experts to say, ‘’If India falls at elimination,

we will all have failed, ’’

The task of finding patients from all strata of society in all regions of the country and

providing a cure —in a country with more than a billion people and over 100 languages

—isn’t an easy one.

Beyond the medical issues, social stigma is also a serious problem in India.

The deeply rooted stigma attached to leprosy has made many of the leprosy-affected

in the country nearly unreachable.

To overcome these barriers, efforts have focused increasingly on broadening the

base of trained people who can look throughout the country for new cases. One example

is the integration of leprosy services into General Health Services, with village health

workers now going from home to home. Another example is the promotion of

communication through school education. As explained in this issue’s Report From

India, schoolchildren are taking home simple blemishes of family members and then bring

the repots back to school.

These steady efforts are having a strong cumulative effect.

More people are being reached than ever before. Still, new groups of people are

being discovered.　Due to issues of language. Geography and social structure, these

groups are proving hardest to reach with the message that leprosy is curable.

But until India has reached all of these people to visit nearby health centers when they

find patches on their skin. For that, the messages, ‘’Leprosy is Curable’’ ‘’Free

Treatment is Available,’’ and ‘’Social Discrimination has no place’’ must be delivered

to all strata of society. The challenge we must not fall to meet is how to reach the

unreachable both with these massages and the cure.

Yohei Sasakawa WHO Goodwill Ambassador

No.4PDF

Message :Reaching the Unreachable

Report from India

Human stories

Ambassador’s Journal

Special Report