Chile is the first country in the Americas to be officially certified leprosy-free by the World Health Organization. On March 4, 2026, the WHO confirmed that the South American country had recorded no locally transmitted leprosy case for more than three decades. The model that brought Chile there could serve as a template for other countries in the region.
A Disease With a Two-Thousand-Year History
Leprosy is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae and attacks primarily the skin, peripheral nerves, and upper respiratory tract. Left untreated, it leads to severe deformities and permanent paralysis. The disease has been associated with social exclusion for millennia: people with leprosy were expelled from their communities for centuries.
Yet leprosy has been treatable since the 1980s. Multidrug therapy (MDT), combining rifampicin, clofazimine, and dapsone, cures the disease within six to twelve months. The WHO has distributed this combination free of charge worldwide since 1995. The catch: in countries with weak health infrastructure, many cases are detected late, not fully treated, or never recorded.
According to WHO data, 172,717 new cases were reported globally in 2024. India bears the greatest burden with around 55,000 cases; Brazil is second with 27,000. Both countries are classified as highly endemic.
Thirty Years Without Local Transmission
Chile stands in stark contrast to these figures. The country registered its last locally acquired case in 1993. In the three decades since, 47 cases were reported — all in people who had contracted the disease abroad. Between 2012 and 2023, not a single reported case could be traced to local transmission.
WHO elimination criteria are strict: five consecutive years without locally acquired infections in children, followed by three more years without any local transmission in the general population. Chile met both conditions. An independent international expert panel reviewed the epidemiological data, surveillance mechanisms, and sustainability plans in 2025. On March 4, 2026, formal WHO certification followed, jointly with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
What Chile Did Right
The Chilean strategy rested on three pillars. First: early, comprehensive diagnosis through a robust reporting system that makes suspected leprosy cases a notifiable condition. Second: free access to MDT for all patients since 1995, initially funded by the Nippon Foundation and from 2000 onward by Novartis. Third: an integrated health system that maintained clinical expertise and laboratory capacity even as case numbers fell over decades.
This last point is, according to PAHO, the hardest to replicate. When a disease becomes rare, physicians lose diagnostic practice. Chile ensured through continuous training and binding protocols that leprosy is recognized even when a doctor sees only a single case in thirty years.
Second Country Worldwide After Jordan
Chile is the 61st country to have eliminated leprosy and the second to complete the formal WHO verification process. Jordan was the first to receive this certification, in 2020. Other countries had declared they met the elimination criteria but did not submit external review requests.
In the Americas, Chile is the sixth country to have officially eliminated at least one neglected tropical disease, but the first to specifically remove leprosy from that list. Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador have eliminated other neglected tropical diseases but some still contend with leprosy.
A Model for the Region
PAHO plans to systematically evaluate Chile's experience and make it available as a framework for other countries. The relevant question is not whether MDT works — that is beyond doubt — but how a health system can continue to reliably monitor, diagnose, and treat a disease that is becoming ever rarer, even as political pressure eases.
The WHO aims to eliminate leprosy in additional countries by 2030. Brazil and India, which together account for nearly half of all global cases, are not regarded as realistic short-term targets. For countries with middle incomes and moderate case counts, Chile demonstrates that thirty years of consistent implementation of a simple strategy is enough.