An action plan to bring down the incidence of leprosy in India and Nepal has been drawn up, with the two South Asian neighbours recording the highest prevalence of the disease in the region at 2.4 persons afflicted in every 10,000.

The action plan, drawn up at the 11-country meeting of the National Programme Managers for Leprosy Elimination here, aims to bring down the incidence of leprosy in India and Nepal to less than one person per 10,000 people by December 2005.

A World Health Organisation report, made public at the meeting, states that in the rest of South Asia the incidence of leprosy has come down to less than one per 10,000.

Derek Lobo, regional advisor of vector-borne diseases and leprosy at the WHO regional office for South-East Asia, said though in 1985, 122 countries had reported leprosy cases, the number had come down to just nine countries in 2003-end.

From the 12 million reported cases of leprosy worldwide in 1985, the number was reduced to .5 million by 2003-end.

However, while most countries have eliminated the disease, India and Nepal and some poor African countries have not yet been able to wipe it out.

In Nepal, about 80 percent of the patients are concentrated in the terai plains close to the Indian border, the dwelling place of a large number of people of Indian origin.

Bimala Ojha, director of leprosy control in Nepal's department of health, said not all patients run the risk of spreading the disease. There are two types of leprosy with non-communicable leprosy being curable if the patient takes medicines for six months.

The communicable type is also curable and would require the patient to be under treatment for one year, she said.