Profile of Childhood Leprosy Cases Attending a Tertiary Care Centre.

In spite of 33 years of use of Multidrug Treatment (MDT) implemented by National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP), leprosy continues to be a major public health problem in some regions of India. Recent increase in number of cases of leprosy at our tertiary care centre especially in children encouraged us to undertake a descriptive study for last 5 years. Records were analysed to describe the clinical pattern of leprosy in children below 15 years pertaining to the period 2010 to 2014. Amongst 664 leprosy cases registered during 2010 to 2014, 86 were found to be children between 0-15 years of age (13.1%). The number of newly detected children with leprosy increased from 7 cases (8%) in the year 2010 to 29 cases (34%) in the year 2014. Majority of patients of childhood category belonged to 10-15 years of age group 51/86 (59%), with a male preponderance. PB cases were significantly more (71%) than cases of MB (29%). Borderline tuberculoid leprosy was the commonest type seen (77%). Grade l and grade 2 deformity were observed in 8% and 6% of childhood cases respectively. 91% of these childhood cases had history of BCG vaccination: 21% of children had a contact in family or neighbourhood which shows the importance of asking the patients to bring family contacts specially children for examination or public health workers being asked to approach the families for check up of contacts. Active surveys/school surveys to find cases specially in female children should be considered. As this is a hospital based study it may be indicative of trends only which should be followed by properly designed field based studies.