World Leprosy Day Report #1: What Is Leprosy?
World Leprosy Day Report #1 Leprosy is one of the most misunderstood sicknesses in the world. Many people in the West think leprosy is a disease in which fingers and limbs fall off, is highly contagious, is incurable, and has been eradicated–if they think about leprosy at all. We don’t recognize the many facts about leprosy because it rarely appears in highly developed countries. It may surprise many readers that about 200 cases of leprosy are reported every year in the United States. There are currently more than 3,000 cases of leprosy under active medical supervision in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and other health care organizations refer to leprosy as Hansen’s disease. Much like a rose, however, leprosy by any other name is still leprosy and still carries with it the deeply imbedded stigma that has been attached to it for millennia. Leprosy is a “a complex infectious” bacterial disease. The disease can be contagious, but is no...