China plans to reduce the rate of leprosy cases by 50 percent over the next 10 years in a bid to eradicate the infectious disease in the country, the Ministry of Health has announced.

The prevalence rate will be brought down to one case for every 10,000 people by 2015, down 20 percent compared to 2010, said a national leprosy-control plan for 2011-20. The rate is expected to further shrink to one in every 100,000 people by 2020, down 50 percent from 2010.

A total of 500,000 leprosy patients have been reported and given free treatment across the country since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

More than 1,700 new cases have been reported annually in the past five years.