1.03
This is India and the heartland of a disease, which for generations has created fear and disgust.
These withered hands and feet are the crippling legacy for sufferers often shamed, and forced to live in isolation because of leprosy.
1.29
Namita Michel contracted leprosy when she was 13 years old. Her family threw her out and she eventually came to the Leper Institute on the outskirts of Jaipur.
1.42
Leprosy is the cruellest of diseases gradually eating away at the flesh until the patient is disabled. Namita lost her fingers, toes and left leg. Although highly dangerous, not all forms of leprosy, contrary to popular belief, are infectious.
2.03
Dr Indranath Banerjee
Sarthak Manav Leprosy Centre
Normally a person who is leprosy positive is not really able to transmit the disease to somebody else. He has the disease in him but he's not able to transmit it. A person who has multi-bacillary leprosy is able to transmit the disease to other people - that is through his nasal secretions or secretions of the mouth. But if he starts taking medicines then very soon, maybe in a matter of weeks, he's rendered incapable of transmitting the disease any further.
2.37
While globally, medicine's had a major impact in preventing Leprosy, in densely populated countries like India it's proving more difficult to eradicate. Here there are still over half million people with various forms of the disease.
3.01
Seventy of them have found shelter in this leprosy refuge. It's funded through donations and the sale handicrafts made by the lepers.
3.15
Their achievements give them a chance to regain their self-respect. In India leprosy is seen by many as divine intervention, the atonement for past sins. So carriers are reluctant to seek treatment until it's too late and the disease has begun to produce deformities. Despite the thriving community here many are still badly affected by what society dished out to them.
3.43
Namita Michel
Leper
My mother and father died when I was young. Ever since me and my brother have been left to fend for ourselves and have been mistreated by those around us.
3.57
But Indian society is fearful. These children are the sons and daughters of lepers. They've been forced to study here because they were thrown out of they own schools.
4.09
The world health organisation is aware of India's plight.
4.14
Dr Vijay Kumar
World Health Organisation
In education targets are different. That means you are getting rid of the disease. With reference to leprosy the intention is to bring the prevalence of the occurrence of the disease to such low levels that it is no longer a public health problem.
4.39
The World health organisation, aims to bring the rates of leprosy down to less one person in 10000, but in India this is a long way from becoming a reality.
4.52
While Preventative treatments such as MDT are having a positive impact they are entirely dependent on an early diagnosis. The incubation time for some forms of leprosy can be up to 8 years. If the government was to reach its target it would need to treat everyone who'd lived with an infected person during that time. The scale of such an operation seems insurmountable.
5.25
Sanwar Mal Kumawaj
Medical technical assistant
Initially the infected feel nothing, but after four or five years it's taken hold. Often people don't want to be treated because they believe it's futile. By then, of course, they've infected other people with leprosy.
5.49
So doctors have come up with a new strategy. In the district of Jaipur, they're travelling to every village to look and treat for early signs of the disease.
6.00
Ram Gophal Kharod contracted leprosy four years ago after his brother, who'd refused to get treatment infected him. Each month he receives a check-up from the doctors.
6.19
Once the treatment has started patients rarely die from the leprosy, but with a weakened immune system they become vulnerable to other infections so each patient has a strict regime to follow. As well as their daily medicine, each month during the check-up they're required to take a more powerful drug. Skin smears are also taken from each patient to assess how the disease is affecting their body tissue. Using these treatments it takes at least 9 months to bring leprosy under control.
7.00
The doctors plan to visit 211 villages in the hope of identifying infected people. It's a tall order but they've had successes. So far they've examined over 200'000 people and found 45 new cases of leprosy.
7.18
Dr Indranath Banerjee
Sarthak Manav Leprosy Centre
Looking for cases in the villages is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack and it is very difficult to find the cases out because we have to survey at least a few thousand people before we can find even one case.
7.35
To draw out an infected person the doctors use case studies to show the different kinds of leprosy
and their symptoms.
7.46
These graphic photos show what can happen if the disease is allowed to develop. The doctor explains
that hair loss and severe sweating are the first signs of infection. But fear of future discrimination
means that some are still reluctant to come forward.
8.04
This leprosy centre is the only one of its kind in India. It offers a six-month training course for about 30 lepers with the aim of reintegrating them back into society.
8.15
Here they learn how to make incense sticks, to grind and pack spices and to cultivate vegetables. But these skills are little use in a society, which fears leprosy like the plague.
8.34
Chandar Shekhar Yadar
When they told me I had leprosy I cried. I knew that people would reject me and they've done that. They see that I am ill - they see it on my hands and the infection of my feet.
8.54
It's estimated that world wide between 1 and 2 million people are disabled because of leprosy. The crisis facing countries like India is rehabilitating these people back into society. As long as prejudice rules many will continue to be treated as social outcasts.
ENDS 9.15
Producer: Marion Mayer-Hohdahl
Camera: Shailesh Seth
AKM:
Ravi Shankar in Celebration
Highlights - 26 seconds
Nr 1 Shun Kafi
CDC 72435 55617 Angel