A Disease You Catch Slowly and Carry Forever: India's Race to End Filariasis by 2027

Article summary

The West Bengal Health Department has launched a mass drug administration drive against lymphatic filariasis, part of a national programme working to a target India has set three years ahead of the world's. Lymphatic filariasis — commonly called elephantiasis — is a mosquito-borne parasitic infection caused by filarial nematodes, of which Wuchereria bancrofti accounts for roughly 90 per cent of cases globally, and it is classified by the WHO as a neglected tropical disease. Because infection requires repeated infective bites over months or years and most infections remain asymptomatic, the disease is invisible in its transmissible phase and disfiguring only much later, when lymphoedema, elephantiasis and hydrocele appear. The control strategy is therefore population-wide rather than patient-led: an annual preventive dose administered to everyone in an at-risk area, sustained long enough to interrupt transmission. India has set elimination as a public health problem by the end of 2027, ahead of the global Sustainable Development Goal and WHO target of 2030, and from February 2026 the national programme moved to a unified annual MDA campaign replacing earlier biannual rounds. The principal obstacle is a four-year gap: MDA was suspended in March 2020 and resumed only in February 2024.