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Abstract
Due to lack of an effective treatment and management approach leprosy continued to be a major public health problem in developing countries. India tops the list of endemic countries with over 62% of the world's leprosy cases. India also tops the list of TB endemic countries with 30% of world TB cases. In India more than 1000 people die from the disease every day. In addition to death and disability these diseases cause massive social and economic harm. The National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP) and the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) are designed to effectively reduce the caseload. Apart from medical and clinical tools, national programmes for such a huge country as India also need state of the art management and planning tools. GIS, which can effectively help visualise and analyse the programme data, is undoubtedly the best management tool. DANLEP & DANTB (Danish assistance to Leprosy and TB control programmes) are one of the firsts to explore the use of GIS in national level health programmes. Apart from detailed geographic information, GIS based systems facilitate spatial distribution of health facilities, drug delivery points, caseload details infrastructure details etc. DANLEP and DANTB are also exploring 'GIS ways and means' to reach the underprivileged and the poorest of the poor by studying spatial characteristics of the socio-economic, tribal and gender data. DANLEP has been very effective in supporting the NLEP and RNTCP programmes by providing an excellent visual communication for coordination among the partners of the programmes. GIS is being successfully used for campaign management, integration studies, selection of new health institutions in the project areas of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu.