Leprosy Newsleper

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Well then, in the coming blogs, Amelia and I will be visiting a few hospitals run by The Leprosy Mission, so I think it's only fair that we get a few things straight before you encounter that.

We don't call them “lepers” any more, the correct term is person affected by/suffering from leprosy. This is not just for the sake of being PC, as I shall explain later.

The disease is caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a member of the same family which causes Tuberculosis.

The bacteria live environmentally in soil and it is NOT CONTAGIOUS. It can be spread from person to person, but only by blood to blood contact, so we will not be coming home with leprosy. Also, it has the longest doubling time of any human pathogen ie, it reproduces very slowly, so the bacterial load will be very small for years.

If I was infected with the bacteria, I would not suffer from the disease, as I have a healthy immune system. Affected people are usually immune compromised in some way, eg HIV or general malnourishment. In fact leprosy patients get many the same secondary illnesses that HIV patients do, eg, Kaposi Sarcoma (a form of skin lesion cancer) and fungal infections.

The bacteria prefer the cooler sites of the body, hands feet, ear lobes, and eyelids, being the main culprits. The mechanism of nerve damage is unknown, but the effect is local to the site of infection

Limbs do not drop off because of the disease.

Symptoms start with a discoloured, numb patch of skin

This develops to almost full anaesthesia of the hand/foot/eyelid. This is where most damage is done. If a person burns the affected part, the damage is still done, but there is no recoil reflex, so much more is done, leading to infections, ulcers, etc. Or a hand could be broken, but not felt, so the person would continue to use the hand normally, and in feeling no pain, cause further damage.

The physical symptoms then extend to the hands and feet becoming clawed and unusable. This is usually the point at which people come forward, and can occur up to 10 years after the appearance of a patch.

In India, the social stigma associated with the disease is almost beyond comprehension. Families, friends, husbands, wives would cast out a formerly loved one into the street to avoid the extended family suffering similar treatment at the hands of the rest of the community. Leprosy is seen as a curse or punishment for sins, so that person must have been very bad in a previous life.

Sufferers then live in communities (colonies) of other sufferers, making them cursed and unclean places for other people. People who live there live in squalor and crippling shame, often not seeking treatment at all. Even those who have been cured return to the colony, as the rest of society will not accept them back.

The Indian government declared leprosy eradicated as a public health issue in the 1980's shortly after the discovery of the Multi Drug Therapy (MDT), and now will not accept any figures provided to it to the contrary. This is nothing short of criminal, and by refusing to admit that they were wrong, the job of changing perceptions has become virtually impossible, as most Indians don't believe that leprosy exists any more. It does. It shouldn't.

For more info please look at http://www.leprosymission.org.uk/

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