On the 22nd of February, 2024, LEPRA India celebrated recipients of the inaugural K.V. Desikan Memorial Award. This year, the award was jointly given to Drs. Anurag and Madhavi Bhargava from Yenepoya Medical College, Mangalore; and to the Bombay Leprosy Project, for their outstanding and inspring work on tuberculosis and leprosy, respectively.

The K.V. Desikan Memorial Award recognizes individuals and/or organisations who have made significant contributions in the field of infectious diseases, in community health/ development/rehabilitation and/or the laboratory sciences.

Drs. Anurag and Madhavi Bhargava  received the 2024 award for their distinctive and dedicated work in the area of malnutrition, tuberculosis and public health. They co-lead the Center for Nutrition Studies at Yenepoya (Deemed to be University) in Mangaluru, and prior to that, worked for ten years at Jan Swasthya Sahayog (JSS) in rural Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. Their decision to move to a remote, underserved, tribal area to help start JSS, and their long-standing work in community health demonstrates their commitment to social justice, equity and health care in rural India. Witnesses to extreme hunger, under-nutrition, and rampant tuberculosis in rural populations, they designed, and successfully completed, the landmark RATIONS trial, published in The Lancet in 2023. The trial decisively demonstrated the impact of food supplementation on reducing deaths among people with tuberculosis, and on reducing the risk of tuberculosis among household members.

The Bombay Leprosy Project also received the 2024 award, for its extraordinary body of work in the area of control, treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy. Founded in 1976, the Bombay Leprosy Project has shown unwavering commitment to care and prevention of disability among persons affected with leprosy in urban areas of Mumbai and adjoining rural areas of Thane district. The project has carried out remarkable case detection work through Information, Education, Communication (IEC) campaigns and special  drives in slum pockets and schools. Demonstrating long standing dedication, the Bombay Leprosy Project has propagated and practiced integration of persons with leprosy in society. Comprehensive training and vocational guidance as well as rehabilitation programmes for persons cured of leprosy has facilitated self reliance.

About the Award

Instituted by LEPRA in the year 2023, the K.V. Desikan Memorial Award recognizes individuals and/or organisations who have made significant contributions in the field of infectious diseases, in community health/ development/rehabilitation and/or the laboratory sciences. Dr K.V. Desikan, formerly Director of the Central JALMA Institute for Leprosy, Agra, and subsequently, Chairman of LEPRA India, was a legend in the field of leprosy. He passed away on 23rd October, 2022, at the age of 96. His work encompassed the entire spectrum of leprosy: descriptive epidemiology, diagnostics, histopathology, immunology, physiology, therapy a nd simple clinical observations; and is acknowledged  with the respect that it deserves.