WHO/Pan American Health Organization
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Publishing technical guidance on leprosy

WHO publishes guides and tools to support translation of WHO recommendations into practice. These resources are intended for use by national programmes and partners to support planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating activities to further reduce the leprosy burden.

In recent years, WHO has published the following guidance documents: A guide for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in leprosy (2017); Guidelines for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of leprosy (2018), which was developed based on the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach; and Technical guidance on the management of reactions and prevention of disabilities (2020). In the near future, technical guidance will be issued on contact tracing and post-exposure prophylaxis. All these documents are available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

Global Strategy

Global Leprosy Strategy 2021‒2030, towards zero leprosy

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16 Million

Patients treated over the past 20 years

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More than 180,000

New cases diagnosed in 2023

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Relevant publications

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Leprosy/Hansen Disease: Management of reactions and prevention of disabilities
The objective of this Technical Guidance document is to review current management practices for leprosy reactions and neuritis and to describe ways in...
Guidelines for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of leprosy

The Guidelines for the Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention of Leprosy provide state-of-the-art knowledge and evidence on leprosy diagnosis, treatment and...

A guide for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in leprosy: 2017 update

The emergence of drug resistance is a concern and a threat for many infectious disease intervention programmes, especially those that have secondary prevention...