July 31, 2011
Thanks to the opportunity that human leprosy infections provide for study of human immune responses, scientists have discovered how the body’s early warning system prompts a rapid immune response by two separate armies of defensive cells. The researchers isolated immune cells in blood samples from healthy people and exposed the cells to a component of […]
July 25, 2011
A few days ago newspapers and websites were reporting that London-born Jacqueline Jean McEwan, a Catholic nun from Britain who has spent 29 years caring for leprosy patients in Bengaluru, India, is being forced to give up her work and leave the country after Delhi refused to renew her residency permit. Sometimes known as the […]
July 31, 2010
To some people, it might at first appear that leprosy or Hansen’s disease as it is properly known, is a disease of the third world, or of poverty torn countries, or confined to India. However, compiled statistics reveal that although it is comparatively rare in the United States, there are currently approximately 6,500 cases and […]
February 16, 2009
The history of leprosy in India offers insights into one of the world’s most misunderstood diseases. The effort towards Leprosy control and elimination still faces many challenges, as Leprosy continues to be stigmatized. In a society with a deeply ingrained, though legally abolished, caste system, this continues to be a problem partly through lack of […]
January 15, 2009
Leprosy is a debilitating, disfiguring disease that brings social exclusion and humiliation to millions of sufferers across the world. It is so deeply burned into the human psyche that in some languages the noun for the victims alone causes fear and disgust. Hence the pejorative term Leper, meaning undesirable or ostracised. Yet Leprosy is curable […]
January 14, 2009
This site has one simple aim – to bring an end to Leprosy Leprosy is curable and preventable and with sufficient human effort could be eradicated completely from the world. It has been curable since the 1980s and treatment is now widely accessible and free of charge. Fifteen million people have been cured of the […]