健康英语新闻:China aims to reduce leprosy cases by half by 2020: ministry

BEIJING, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- China plans to decrease leprosy rates by 50 percent over the next 10 years, according to a joint plan to fight the infectious disease issued by the Ministry of Health and ten other ministerial-level institutions.

The prevalence rate is targeted to be brought down to one case per 10,000 people by 2015. The rate will further shrink to one in every 100,000 people by 2020 in at least 98 percent of the country's counties, according to the plan.

A total of 500,000 cases of leprosy have been reported and treated for free throughout the country since the founding of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949.

The number of leprosy cases has plummeted over the past 62 years, but the country still faces challenges in fighting the disease, the plan said.

Leprosy, an infectious disease that has affected humanity for over 4,000 years, is primarily characterized by skin lesions and progressive physical debility, and can cause permanent nerve damage.

Despite sustained efforts -- and considerable success -- in bringing the disease under control, leprosy is still a serious disease in some parts of China and people who have been cured of the disease continue to face discrimination.

More than 1,700 new cases have been reported annually in the past five years. The provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hunan and the Tibet Autonomous Region are most affected by the disease, according to the plan.