Leprosy is present in a significant part of the world, primarily in Africa and Southeast Asia.
However about 80% of all new cases occur in India, Brazil and Indonesia.
Although some 200,000 new cases are universally reported every year, made up of a huge number of children, specialists believe that there may be many more patients who are not diagnosed because they do not seek medical help.
“The infection begins with spots on the human body that do not cause discomfort to several patients,” doctor Erwin Cooreman, director of the WHO (WHO) Universal Leprosy Program, tells BBC Mundo.
“The spots are not painful or itchy, so the individual can ignore them and not seek medical help and go undiagnosed.”
“It is until the human body is filled with spots or they begin to have deformations once they do not have the possibility of ignoring the pathology for the moment,” he adds.