The Leprosy Mission (TLM) is an international and inter-denominational Christian medical organisation focused on the treatment and eradication of Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy. Their operational focus is on healthcare delivery, rehabilitation, advocacy, and rights-based approaches in endemic communities. It began as a response to the suffering of people with Leprosy in India by an Irish teacher in the late 19th Century. After 150 years of medical research and outreach, the disease is today both treatable and preventable. The organisation now works with global partners towards zero leprosy transmission, zero disability, and zero discrimination for people affected by the disease.
Global operations The Leprosy Mission works through a Global Fellowship, composed of Members and Affiliates from 27 different countries. It is organised into four global areas of operations, some which focus implementing leprosy work, others which concentrate on raising funds.
1. Europe
The Leprosy Mission lists Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Great Britain Hungary Netherlands Northern Ireland Norway Sweden and Switzerland as either members or affiliates in its Global Fellowship. These are focused on raising funds for the global work.
2. Africa TLM has teams in Chad, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Niger and Nigeria. It directly operates its own hospitals in many of these countries, where the lines of effort are on active case detection, training people for self-care groups, and outpatient care integrated with clinical services.
3. Asia
Across Asia, TLM operates in Bangladesh, East Timor, India, Myanmar, Nepal and South Korea. Here, they partner with specialist hospitals and clinics, deliver surgery and ulcer care, operates large outpatient services and patient helplines, conduct clinical research, and support community outreach along with disability-inclusion projects.
4. Oceania In Oceania, the Leprosy mission implements health programs in Papua New Guinea. The national committees in Australia and New Zealand primarily focus on generating support.
According to its 2023 Annual report, members and supporters of The Leprosy Mission raise approximately GBP 40 million each year to sustain global operations.
Areas of work
Hospitals and healthcare The Leprosy Mission owns 14 hospitals in India, one in Bangladesh, and one in Nepal. TLM-affiliated hospitals provide specialist tertiary care, including reconstructive surgeries, along with the treatment of leprosy itself. They also serve as centres for training, both for doctors and paramedics, in matters such as early detection.
Once trained, local doctors and nurses at these hospitals treat ulcers and leprosy reactions, providing counselling, mental health support, and health education, much of which also forms the basis for medical research. They also provide reconstructive surgery, physiotherapy, assistive devices, and special footwear. In 2022, 1,335 people underwent reconstructive surgery with The Leprosy Mission. Allied health professionals, connected to centres such as in Nigeria and Myanmar, serve in mobile prosthetic units in that provide medical care to those who have lost their limbs. All of this is designed to enable people affected by leprosy towards self-reliance and independence.
The Leprosy Mission also supports a number of hospitals in Asia and Africa that are owned by the government or local church. For example, the Mawlamyine Christian Leprosy Hospital in Myanmar and the Qua Iboe Church Hospital in Ekpene Obom partners with Leprosy Mission for surgical support. Equally, Nigerian state owned hospitals in the states of Kano, Sokoto and Niger States also work in partnership with TLM for medical treatment resources.
Community-based rehabilitation
People affected by leprosy are often socially ostracised, which prevents them from being able to participate in the economic, social, and political life of the society in which they live. This is despite the disease now being proven to be easy to treat in the early stages and difficult to catch even from close contact.
To tackle this issue, The Leprosy Mission supports community-based rehabilitation programmes, particularly across Asia and Africa. This work includes promoting inclusive development, skills training, micro-finance, self-help groups, low-cost housing, self-care groups, and supporting Disabled People's Organisations. Self-help groups have been proven to reduce the experience of stigma, increase well-being, and enhance household economic performance. The Leprosy Mission also campaigns to end legal discrimination against people affected by leprosy and encourages community support for those affected. A good example of this has been community‑based rehabilitation in Nepal which has involved small‑scale grants for businesses and scholarships for leprosy‑affected individuals.
Training and education
Historically, The Leprosy Mission has been closely linked—through partners and affiliate institutions—to training a wide range of healthcare workers. A leading example is through The Leprosy Mission Trust India, whose hospitals are recognised by government, not only for reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation, but for training of doctors, allied health professionals, cascading down to frontline staff.
Leprosy is found predominantly in countries where poverty is widespread, and correlates with low education, food insecurity, poor housing, and lack of sanitation. To help prevent poverty amongst the leprosy community, The Leprosy Mission provides education to people affected by leprosy, offering formal education and literacy classes.
For school-age children, The Leprosy Mission will provides support to help them to stay in school and finish their school education. In a 2024 project in Bangladesh, 100 students from vulnerable families affected by leprosy were sponsored to pursue higher education and they, in turn, provided free coaching services to 498 primary and high school students as well as non-formal education to 210 adults. For adults in Africa, The Leprosy Mission has supported programs offering vocational training in computing, agriculture, car mechanics and printing.
The Leprosy Mission, as part of its work within the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations, conducts training programmes for general health care workers. These sessions are designed to strengthen early recognition of the clinical signs of leprosy, ensure correct administration of multi-drug therapy (MDT), and thereby reduce the risk of further transmission within communities.
Partner organisations also engage in community awareness campaigns. For example, in Mozambique (through the "Mission Zero" project) and in India (Chhattisgarh), efforts have focused on increasing local leprosy awareness, reducing stigma, and promoting early detection. Additionally, World Leprosy Day campaigns—organised by ILEP's member institutions—serve as nationally and internationally visible platforms for public education on leprosy.
Advocacy
Advocacy has been shown to reduce stigma and raise community awareness, which, in turn, encourages people to seek treatment for leprosy earlier. The Leprosy Mission works with people affected by leprosy so that they can advocate both for awareness of the condition, for their rights, and to ensure they face fewer physical and social barriers, as well as removing legal barriers to participating in society. The advocacy of the partner movement in India led to repeals of archaic laws where leprosy was grounds for divorce.
TLM and its partners advocate with communities by creating and supporting self-help groups. This is demonstrated to increase the health literacy and confidence of participants. Under community leadership; over time, this shifts from NGO-led advocacy to self-advocacy by people affected by leprosy—a pattern evidenced in Nepal and India and reinforced by legal-rights advocacy. The program in Chhattisgarh, India, was shown to encourage women to become more self-sufficient, including participation in the workforce, along with successful reforms to local government.
The Leprosy Mission has worked with the United Nations to pressure member states to protect the rights of people affected by leprosy. This advocacy is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At the national level, TLM works with national governments to ensure that leprosy receives the appropriate time, attention, and resources. These activities aim to press governments to repeal discriminatory laws and to follow UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly guidance on ending leprosy-related discrimination.
The Leprosy Mission also advocates for sustained government support, as reductions in leprosy cases have led governments to prematurely declare the crisis resolved. However, once funding is removed, resurgences in transmission have followed.
Ensuring access to MDT (multi-drug therapy) is a focused area of activity for TLM. In Nigeria, a stated concern is for "leprosy patients who belong to the poorest of the poor are not able to access this life-saving medication." Here, advocacy begins within the local health systems, ensuring early recognition of the clinical signs of leprosy, and that multi-drug therapy is provided.
Research
The Leprosy Mission's commitment to research spans decades, with its community of clinicians delivering key treatment breakthroughs in the 1960s to 1980s.
Dr Paul Brand and his wife Dr Margaret Brand joined the staff of The Leprosy Mission in 1953, going on to lead a dedicated research team for 30 years. The Brands pioneered the discovery that the loss of fingers and toes amongst people with leprosy was, in fact, due to infection and therefore preventable. He went on to innovate reconstructive surgery for leprosy-related disability, largely working in TLM partnered hospitals in India.
Stanley G. Browne was a lifelong medical missionary and later medical consultant to The Leprosy Mission. A prolific scientist, he publishing "some 500 articles" across leprosy and tropical medicine. Working with Dr John Lowe, also serving with the Mission, Browne made early therapeutic investigations into the use of sulfone drugs, such as dapsone, which were found could stop Mycobacterium leprae from multiplying. In the 1950s, Browne conducted therapeutic trials of clofazimine. It proved effective both as an anti-microbial and as an anti-inflammatory agent, particularly helpful in controlling erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL), a painful leprosy reaction. Both these drugs were later incorporated into multidrug therapy which is regarded as "the principal catalyst for achieving grew from trials combining rifampicin, dapsone, and clofazimine. In the view of the World Health Organization, this multi-drug therapy "proved spectacularly effective."
More recent research has gone into drug resistance in leprosy resulting from genetic mutations in bacterial strains. Around 70% of people affected by leprosy may struggle with mental illness (anxiety or depression), so The Leprosy Mission also works to understand the link between leprosy and personal wellbeing. Research continues in the Mycobacterial Research Laboratory in Anandaban Hospital, Nepal, at the Rural Health Programme, Nilphamari, Bangladesh, and at the Stanley Browne Laboratory in New Delhi, India.
Strategy and goals