The Marchoux Institute, an OCCGE centre for leprosy research, has provided training for more than a thousand health workers between 1979 and 1995. Formerly, this training was offered entirely at the Marchoux Institute. It was aimed at leprosy control workers administering dapsone monotherapy within the framework of vertically integrated programmes. With the introduction of treatment programmes using multidrug therapy, leprosy control was integrated into the comprehensive health services. This change in approach dramatically increased the need for training and made it necessary to adapt the training offered by the Marchoux Institute. Since 1990, the Marchoux Institute has targeted doctors in training and health care staff at the supervisory level. The rise in the number of health agents to be trained has led to the arrangement of short-term training courses in the States concerned, with the participation of facilitators from the Marchoux Institute.