Last month I went to Mozambique with the Leprosy Mission. There was much that was heartening compared with my trip to Ethiopia two years ago, which left me praying for the Apocalypse to end such suffering, as I visited the dwellings of the outcasts, picked my way through human excrement and marvelled at the faith which bore it all.
The single biggest obstacle to progress in fighting leprosy is stigma. It isolates people with the disease, which in turn means they go into denial about having it until it is too late to prevent serious disability. Governments, eager to pretend they have met the World Health Organisation’s well-intentioned but misconceived aim of eradicating the disease altogether, also go into denial about the extent of leprosy within their countries, which means there is no education about it, including the signs to watch out for.
