About DANLEP

The Danish Assistance to the National Leprosy Eradication Programme (DANLEP), a project of the Danish bilateral agency, Danida, seeks to assist the Government of India to achieve the NLEP target of reducing the leprosy prevalence rate to less than 1 person per 10,000. And, by doing so, to reduce the level of leprosy transmission.

Launched in 4 districts in the 3 states of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu in 1986, DANLEP now covers all four states. It works through support units at the state and district levels, and has a central co-ordinating unit in Delhi.

DANLEP focuses on community mobilisation, attempting to build a triad between service providers, patients and the community. It seeks to ensure wider coverage by making service delivery more user friendly. Special initiatives have been taken for tribals and women to enhance the utilisation of services by these groups.

DANLEP's multipronged strategy consists of:

• Infrastructural support (drugs, mobility, etc)
• Health education, (including community participation activities)
• Human resource development (eg., developing training plans)
• Programme monitoring
• Prevention and care of deformities

To ensure more effective implementation, attempts to integrate leprosy services with the primary health care system were started in the '90s. The success of the programme is reflected, among other things, in an increase in the voluntary reporting of cases, as well as in the reduction of the stigma associated with the disease.

Danida supported the National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEEP) for 18 years (1986-2003) in working towards a world where leprosy no longer struck fear and caused physical, mental and emotional suffering. The goal was close to achievement when DANLEP phased out, as India hopes to eliminate leprosy as a public health problem by 2005.

The main DANLEP achievements were in a number of related areas, such as the promotion of community participation, the development of large numbers of people from the variety of backgrounds and institutions to work towards elimination of leprosy and the strengthening of the government health system to deal with leprosy. The most vivid of these achievements was the transformation in the image of leprosy from one of frightening disfigurement to a simple, curable disease.