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“Health education and awareness activities were among the most affected by the conflict and health workers had been facing difficulty of travelling in many villages due to fear of getting caught in the armed encounters between the rebels and the government security forces.

"We are hopeful that Nepal's goal of eliminating leprosy will now be achieved," said Kan Tun, head of the WHO mission to Nepal. He added that Nepal has made commendable progress in reducing the burden of leprosy. In 1966, Nepal had an estimated 100,000 leprosy cases. But with the introduction of multi-drug therapy (MDT), an effective treatment for the disease, the prevalence of leprosy dropped swiftly from 21 cases per 10,000 people in early 1980s to only 1.65 per 10,000 by 2006, according to the National Leprosy Elimination Programme (NLEP) run jointly by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the WHO.”