ESTIMATING THE SIZE OF THE LEPROSY PROBLEM - THE BANGLADESH EXPERIENCE

Assessing the size of the leprosy problem in a country is an important but difficult issue for the purpose of programme planning. Different methods have been proposed but often estimates have proved to be very different from reality. We have attempted to address this issue in Ban gladesh, a country where official estimates are more than 5 times grea ter than the registered number of leprosy cases. A combination of meth ods, including surveys, data from leprosy control programmes and local knowledge based on the Delphi technique have been combined to constru ct an estimate of the total number of cases in Bangladesh. This figure (173,196) is only 10% greater than the official estimate (136,000). I t will be possible over the next few years to see how close this figur e is to reality through data obtained from the National Leprosy Contro l Programme which is now rapidly developing to cover the whole country .