[Profile of leprosy in New Caledonia. Evolution from 1983-1998].

The authors report the results of a retrospective study on the evolution of leprosy in New-Caledonia, French island in Oceania, between 1983, time of the onset of polychemotherapy (PCT), and 1998. Since 1996, the prevalence is and remains less than 1/10,000. The annual rate detection fall from 15.6 in 1983 to 2.48/100,000 in 1998. Less than 10 new cases are detected annually since 1994. During this period, the number of new patients less than 15-years old decreased and the percentage of multibacillary patients increased, assessing a priori the improvement of the endemicity. One case of relapse was detected in a MB patients treated for 2 years among the 231 new patients.