Abstract

Leprosy is still considered one of the world’s important chronic diseases. Although multidrug therapy (MDT) has contributed to decline of its incidence, there are still hundreds of thousands of new cases each year. A full understanding of the physiological, clinical, transmission, immunology, genetic and bacterial aspects of this disease is very important to track the problem by multidisciplinary scientific investigation. Excellent work on the design and synthesis of new drugs to treat Leprosy is being performed all over the world, and is included in this manuscript. Nevertheless, studies to find more effective drugs to treat leprosy are still needed. Leprosy and others parasitic, bacterial, viral and protozoan infections form the group of neglected tropical diseases (NTD) and are among the leading causes of chronic disability and poverty in low- and middle-income countries.