“She has lost the weight-bearing part of her feet and suffers from ulcers so we have made her special shoes,” said Ghosh. Bhanu's hands are stumps, accidentally burned during cooking – loss of sensation is one of the symptoms of leprosy along with skin lesions and eye disorders. The eye condition lagothalmus once prevented Bhanu from closing her eyes fully; an operation has left them looking swollen.

“They are like the old and new face of the disease,” said Ghosh. “These days we can reverse nerve damage if we get to people within three months. We can avoid the kind of mutilation you used to see.”

The Leprosy Mission treated almost 7000 patients last year. The Indian government's policy is to move leprosy out into mainstream hospitals, but there is a shortage of specialist centres such as this in the capital.

According to official figures, India has made enormous strides towards eliminating leprosy, although it still accounts for more than half the world's cases. In just over one year leprosy cases were halved to fewer than 120,000, enabling the government to claim credit for meeting WHO targets of one case per 10,000 by the end of 2005.

However experts say real elimination of leprosy in India – particularly in urban slums where it spreads faster – is still some years off, warning that premature announcements about the positive strides made may hamper efforts to control the disease.

“It's very good to aim for elimination, but it's only a medical definition,” explained Dr Oomen Sushil John, a leprologist at the Leprosy Mission research centre.

“We can't wipe out leprosy until we find a vaccine. Talking about elimination makes people think there's no need to sponsor leprosy clinics or to donate.”

Scepticism is running high among medical experts, field workers and activists, who say the official picture is misleading.

“People are sceptical because when official agencies decide the figure must come down, they give you the corresponding figures,” said Dr RS Misra, secretary of the Indian Leprosy Association which recently discovered high numbers of children in Delhi schools infected with leprosy.

“Leprosy can go undetected for a long time. You can have no symptoms for years. Probably at least 50% of those infected are still not even known.”

The social stigma attached to leprosy is a major obstacle to its elimination. Traditionally the disease was seen as a curse or bad karma. A woman with skin discolouration was considered tainted and doubts would be cast on her ability to bear healthy children. As in the West, leper colonies were established to quarantine the infected.

“Stigmatisation is still very high, although it is declining,” explained Dr Renu Addlakha, a sociologist who has studied leprosy in central and eastern India where prevalence is high.

“In many places people fear that it's contagious. Even though they know it's curable, the mindset is still there.”

Addlakha said official statistics also reflect the stigma.

“We want to look good internationally,” she said. “We have a huge population so it's quite easy to camouflage the figures.”