| The present papers report on the epidemiological situations including the epidemiological trends, the risk of relapses and the prediction of basic eradication (elimination) of leprosy in China as follows.Between 1949 and 1996 a total of 471,254 leprosy patients were detected in China. In 1996, the numbers of newly detected cases and active cases were 1,683 and 6,248, respectively. For the detection rate, it increased after 1954 and reached to the peak of 5.01 per 100,000 population in the years 1958-59, and then came to decrease gradually in the 1970s to less than 1 per 100,000 population in the early 1980s, lower than 0.5 per 100,000 population after 1986 and 0.15 per 100,000 population in 1996. For the prevalence rate, it was highest (more than 2 per 10,000 population) in the 1960s and decreased annually from the 1970s onwards with the most marked decline of 44.4% in 1988-89. The average decline rate of the prevalence rates after 1988 (the MDT implementation era) did not significantly differ from that during the period 1974-87 (the later DDS monotherapy era). The national prevalence rate in 1996 was 0.06 per 10,000 population. In the specific distribution of leprosy in provinces, municipalities or regions (PMRs), the PMRs with the higher detection rates were Guangdong, Hainan, Fujian and Yunnan in the 1950s and 1960s, but since the 1970s, the highest detection rate was occupied by Tibet. From the 1980s onwards, the detection rate in Tibet remained the highest in the country, followed by Yunnan and Guizhou. In 1996, the detection rates in these 3 PMRs were 2.42, 1.19 and 0.91 per 100,000 population, respectively. The PMRs with the higher prevalence rates were Guangdong (2.58-7.16/10,000), Yunnan (2.57-7.41/10,000), Fujian (2.40-5.29/10,000) and Hainan (1.94-5.60/10,000) in the 1950s and 1960s, Yunnan (6.6/10,000) and Jiangsu (4.3/10,000) in the 1970s, and Tibet (0.4-3.9/10,000) from the 1980s onwards. In 1996, there were 4 PMRs each with the prevalence rate of over 0.1 per 10,000 population, namely Tibet (0.38/10,000), Yunnan (0.32/10,000), Guizhou (0.17/10,000) and Sichuan (0.16/10,000). The number of active patients in these 4 PMRs accounted for 59.1% of the national load. The national prevalence rate was significantly lower than that in the world or the Western Pacific Region, but there was still two PMRs, namely Tibet and Yunnan each with the prevalence of more than the average level of the Western Pacific Region. Therefore, it can be concluded that leprosy is still prevalent in the limited areas (especially in some areas in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Tibet) even its endemic has been significantly controlled at the national level, and these areas will be the priorities for the leprosy control in China in future.During the period 1949-1996, altogether 12,228 leprosy patients relapsed, of whom 11,650 relapsed after clinical cure with DDS monotherapy and 203 after release from MDT treatment. Among 293,796 patients cured by DDS monotherapy and followed up for an average period of 14.5±8.7 years, 10,927 patients relapsed, giving an overall relapse rate of 2.57 per 1,000 person-years (PYs). The relapse rate for MB patients (4.17/1,000 PYs) was significantly higher than that for PB patients (1.72/1,000 PYs). In 43,270 patients followed up for an average duration of 5.1 ±2.6 years after release from MDT treatment, 203 relapsed with an overall relapse rate of 0.91 per 1,000 PYs...
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