LEPRA volunteers attending to patients with leprosy. | Photo Credit: By arrangement Initiated by French humanitarian Raoul Follereau in 1953 to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary on January 30, Anti-Leprosy Week is celebrated on the last Sunday in January That leprosy is alive and thriving in India is evident from the fact that 60 % of the global cases are registered in our country. A case is diagnosed every 5 -6 minutes, of which 10 % are children. Explaining the surge, Prasant Kumar Naik, Chief Executive, LEPRA India says, “When the cases fell below 1 % per 10,000 population, the government of India declared the disease as ‘eliminated’, and we became complacent, which led to the disease making a comeback in the states like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat and overall, spiking the numbers.’