Cured lepers still live in colonies in China
From Reuters Health:
The old men hunched overa board game looked like any other pensioners playing chess, until theylifted their heads to welcome medical staff approaching their table.
Scarred by leprosy, some of the menhave collapsed noses and others have missing fingers, easily visible asthey held up their hands to greet their doctors.
All of the inhabitants at the Panyuleprosy village in southern China have recovered from the potentiallydebilitating skin disease and are no longer infectious.
But many are badly disfigured andblind and are utterly incapable of rebuilding their lives after beingforcibly institutionalized for decades, far away from their families.
Panyu is one of hundreds of “leprosyvillages” in China, a legacy from the 1950s when very little was knownabout leprosy, or Hansen’s disease.
Mistaken as a very infectious or evenincurable disease, those diagnosed with leprosy were exiled to remotevillages and forgotten.
Ou Feng was diagnosed with leprosy at the age of 18 and sent to live on Panyu, a tiny island in southern Guangdong province.
Now 78, she is excited to greet visitors, grasping their extended hands and holding them for a long time.
“We have lunch ready for you. Please eat now, we are so happy when you come,” said Ou.
Until recently leprosy sufferers wereshunned due to an incorrect belief their illness was highly infectious.Lepers were turned into outcasts and often sequestered in “lepercolonies.
***
Since the 1980s, people newly afflictedwith leprosy are no longer exiled to remote villages in China. Butthese villages remain and are home to some 200,000 recovered lepers.
Read more at http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2006/10/02/eline/links/20061002elin008.html
Ed: For more information about leprosy, visit the World Health Organization’s website.