A sample survey of leprosy in the ELEP Leprosy Control Project, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu

A sample survey of the Dharmapuri Leprosy Control Project was undertaken in 1983; a population of 60855 was enumerated out of which 51205 was examined. The sampling procedure which was followed consisted of stratifying the sub-centres according to prevalence and classifying the villages by the size of the population. Villages were selected by random allocation. 10 leprosy inspectors participated in the survey examining 626 to 774 persons per day. 859 active cases were detected giving a prevalence of 16.77 per thousand. The child prevalence was 6.19 per thousand. The number of lepromatous and BL cases detected were 70 giving an infectivity rate of 8.15%. The prevalence of leprosy as found in the last survey conducted in the different areas in the project approximate to those of the sample survey. Therefore it could be said that the prevalence has decreased in this project from 19.94 per thousand as observed in the first survey. The child prevalence has likewise decreased from 9.40 to 4.09 in the project.