The drive aims to screen at least 32 crore people as the campaign would cover 149 endemic districts across 20 states where the prevalence rate of the disease is more than one case per 10,000 population.
The ‘Leprosy Case Detection Campaign’ (LCDC), which was launched on Monday, will cover 1,656 blocks of the districts.
A total of 297,604 teams comprising of one female ASHA worker and one male volunteer, would each visit every house in their allotted area and screen all family members for leprosy.
The states and union territories which the LCDC will cover, include Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Delhi and Lakshadweep.
“The districts having a prevalence rate of more than one case per 10,000 population in any of the last three years have been included in this campaign,” an official statement said.
The campaign has been launched in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to eradicate leprosy from India. "House to house visits will be done by the search teams according to the micro plan prepared for the local area to detect hidden and undetected leprosy cases," the statement said.
"The objective of the campaign is the early detection of leprosy in affected persons so that they can be saved from physical disability and deformity by providing them timely treatment and thus also halting the transmission of disease at the community level," it said.
The first LCDC was launched during March-April in 50 districts of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh covering a population of around 6.8 crores.
A total of 65,427 suspected cases were identified out of which 4,120 were later confirmed during the campaign, the statement added.