BRIGHTER FUTURE INTERNATIONAL TRUST
Registered Charity 1110823
© 2018 Brighter Future International Trust
one person every two minutes
is diagnosed with leprosy.
Leprosy is a mildly infectious disease, caused by
tiny bacteria (Micro-bacterium leprae). It’s one of
the most complicated diseases known to man and
can lie dormant and undetected in your body for up
to 20 years. We still don’t know how it is spread,
but thankfully it is easily cured with a mixture of
antibiotics.
Weakened immune systems due to poor sanitation,
malnutrition and over-crowded living conditions mean that
leprosy goes hand-in-hand with poverty. Perhaps that is
why over 58% of news cases of leprosy occur in India.
Leprosy attacks small nerves on the skin’s surface and the
first signs of this are discoloured patches. Areas affected
by the disease lose feeling. Imagine cooking over an
open fire and not noticing a pot burning your hand. Or
working in the field, walking over stones which cut in to
your feet, but you feel no pain?
Without treatment, leprosy damages the large
nerves in the elbow, wrist, knee and ankle. This
causes loss of feeling in hands and feet and
muscle paralysis, which results in fingers bending
in to the palm like a ‘claw’ and difficulty in
moving the ankle and toes upwards.
Everyday activities become extremely dangerous. Burns
and cuts ulcerate, and often become infected. This can
result in the shortening of fingers and toes, leading to
amputation in many cases.
If that wasn’t bad enough, leprosy can also attack the
facial nerves that tell eyelid muscles to blink.
If you can’t blink, you can’t get dirt out of your eyes and
this can cause blindness.
What does this actually mean? If you can’t for example,
grip a tool, hold a hot cooking pot, push a rickshaw, or use
your fingers to plant vegetables, you can’t work. No work,
no food. It’s that simple. The whole family suffers and
poverty just gets worse and worse. So why don’t people
with leprosy just take the antibiotics?
In the UK when we have symptoms we can’t explain we
usually visit our doctor for help – it’s unlikely that fear of
ostracism by our family and friends would keep us suffering
in silence. But that is exactly what happens in India.
For many reasons, cultural and religious,
leprosy is one of the most feared diseases
in India. It is believed that leprosy is a
curse or punishment for misdeeds in a
former life.
Having leprosy can mean that you are chased out of your
home (it’s still grounds for divorce in India!), away from
your family and community. The whole family has a black
mark placed upon it. Discrimination means that no-one
will talk to you, you can’t find work, and children are
turned away from school and face an unmarried future – a
further stigma.
How would you feel if you thought you might lose your
loved ones, and cause your family pain? It’s no wonder
that people hide the symptoms of leprosy for as long as
they can.
Of course, no treatment means almost certain disability.
The good news is that leprosy can be cured at any stage
and surgery can reverse hand and foot problems.
However blindness cannot be reversed, and once feeling is
lost, it can never return. This means life-long risk of
injury.
UK Registered Charity 1110823