In September 2016, India introduced the world’s first vaccine for leprosy, an infectious disease
that causes numbness in the limbs and ulcers on the skin.
Leprosy has existed for thousands of years, and is even mentioned in the Christian Bible.
Throughout history, the disease has been so feared that those infected were often quarantined
in self-imposed or state mandated colonies.
But today, leprosy is easily curable and very rare, however a few these so-called Leper
Colonies still exist.
So, where are these quarantine sites, and why do we still have them?
Well, in 2000, the World Health Organization declared leprosy officially ‘eliminated’,
finding just one infected person for every 10,000 people.
Since then the number of new cases has continued to decrease.
Today, more than 200,000 new cases a year are reported and more than half are in India.
Because the disease is not very contagious, most countries have closed their leper colonies.
Nevertheless, a few still exist, as many leprosy victims actually quarantine themselves, fearing
ostracism from their community.
Roughly 700 of these informal leper colonies are thought to exist in India, where, in some
parts of the country, leprosy is equated with the the lowest societal caste: “untouchables”.
Those who have or once had the disease are known to be fired from their jobs, evicted
from their homes and abandoned by friends, family and spouses.
Much of this stigma comes from discriminatory laws, which dictate that those with leprosy
cannot obtain a driver’s license or ride on trains, and in some areas, they are barred
from public office or even voting.
The US state of Hawaii also has remnants of a once state-controlled leper colony.
In 1865, the then autonomous island began forcibly banishing those suspected of having
leprosy to a contained community in Molokai, one of its lesser-known islands.
The program was highly controversial as families were split up and children were forced to
grow up in relative isolation.
Nevertheless it continued for more than a century, during which time an estimated 8,000
people were exiled.
In 1969 - a full 10 years after Hawaii gained statehood - the U.S. government lifted the
law and the inhabitants were free to go.
But, perhaps surprisingly, about half chose to stay, and as of 2015, six leprosy patients
still lived on the island.
In the U.S., leprosy never quite became an epidemic.
Nevertheless, anyone who was diagnosed with the disease was required by law to be quarantined
and treated in a small town in Louisiana, called Carville.
At its height, the Carville leprosarium housed up to around 500 patients, all of whom were
encouraged to change their name and forfeit all personal relationships.
The US government stopped sending patients to Carville in 1999, however like Molokai,
some residents chose to stay.
One particularly harsh country for those with leprosy was Japan.
During the second half of the 20th century, the Japanese government rounded up thousands
of infected people and sent them to remote quarantine sites.
where they were subjected to prison-like conditions, forced sterilization and abortions.
The treatment was so harsh that the families of victims filed a class-action lawsuit against
the government in 2016.
The first effective drug to fight leprosy was introduced in the 1940’s, and over the
past two decades, more than 16 million people have been cured of the disease.
Most leper colonies have slowly been converted to museums and state-run historical sites.
But although leprosy is no longer a threat to public health, the stigma around
it remains.