Endemicity of leprosy in the Union Territory of Chandigarh and surrounding states.

Data on 603 leprosy patients registered with the Leprosy clinic at the Nehru Hospital attached to Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh was analysed. The sample was collected over a period of 6 years in this area of very low endemicity. The overall average age at onset of the disease was 35.07 years. Majority of the patients had contacted the disease by the age of 39 years. Only 2% patients presented with the disease in the first decade. Males were more often seen with the disease than the females (M:F, 3:6:1). The highest represented type of leprosy was borderline (47.7%) and least represented was lepromatous (24.4%) with tuberculoid group inbetween (27.9%). The most common sites of first lesion were the exposed areas i.e. hand, trunk, feet and forearm. Most of the patients came from high prevalence states of the country. There were, however, 118 Punjabis and 41 Haryanvis who had never been outside their home states to any endemic area. The findings are presented.