Shortage Of Leprosy Drugs:
Clofazimine, a key drug for treatment of leprosy, which had been in short supply in the Indian market for several months, is now “not available”, with the situation turning into a crisis over the past three months.
- Clofazimine is one of the three essential drugs in the Multi Drug Treatment of Multibacillary Leprosy (MB-MDT) cases, along with Rifampicin and Dapsone.
- According to the World Health Organization (WHO), leprosy is endemic in several States and Union Territories of India, with the annual case detection rate of 4.56 per 10,000 population.
- The prevalence rate of leprosy is 0.4 per 10,000 population in the country.
- Of the new cases detected during 2020-21, 58.1% were multibacillary, 39% were women, 5.8% were children less than 14 years of age, and 2.41% had visible deformities.
- The rate of visible deformities was 1.1 per million population.
