By Mike Wooldridge in Delhi

What is being described as the world's biggest ever media campaign against leprosy has been launched in India.

It aims to dispel myths surrounding the disease and speed up its eradication.

India has more than 60% of the world's leprosy patients.

The campaign involves the Indian government, the state broadcasting networks, and the BBC, through its NGO arm, the BBC World Service Trust.

Oldest known disease

Leprosy is the oldest known disease. It is completely curable now, thanks to the multi-drug therapy introduced in the 1980s. If caught and treated early enough, it is not disfiguring.

However, as speakers pointed out at the launch of this campaign, leprosy has a potent symbolism about it.

Historically it has been associated with rejection, with untouchability.

Mahatma Gandhi famously sought to reverse the image. But the campaign revolves around the belief that there is still considerable prejudice towards leprosy sufferers.

India has 85% of the world's cured leprosy patients, but a rising number of cases are coming to light, many of them hidden until now.

India has set its own target for eradication as 2003 - two years ahead of the current global target.

Eradication strategy

The new strategy uses advertising spots that will be broadcast on radio and TV and which particularly seek to challenge the continuing myths about leprosy and the stigma surrounding it.

To help capture the public's imagination, they involve personalities such as the cricketers, Sachin Tendulkar, and Saurav Ganguly, a badminton player, a computer operator and a housewife who have all had and been cured of leprosy.

The states being particularly targeted are Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh.

Other countries still to eliminate leprosy include Brazil, Indonesia, Burma, Mozambique, Madagascar and Ethiopia.