Photos and Images from

SARVASHUBHAMKARAan organization that works with

'forgotten people'of the Indian subcontinent.

http://www.sarvashubhamkara.org/pages/leprosy.html

Leprosy is a bacterial

disease that destroys

the peripheral and motor

nerves.

It’s easy to forget that

leprosy as an active disease is a reality for

millions of people in the world today.

One person is officially diagnosed with leprosy every fifty seconds, making some

2,000 new cases every day, and some 600,000 every year.

The World Health

Organization estimates that, between 2010

and 2020, a further 7.5

million people will be infected

Leprosy remains most prominent in areas of poor

hygiene, overcrowding

and poor nutrition.

It is calculated that at least some 2.5 million people affected by leprosy still

await the most basic medical care in India

Leprosy is not hereditary and is

the least contagious of all communicable

diseases.

The greatest problem for those diagnosed with leprosy is the total social

ostracisation they suffer.

. . . these lonely, physically damaged

people remain wholly rejected by all

members of society

People who bear the stigma of the disease are invariably reduced to living in isolated

communities.

The children of parents who have suffered with leprosy . . . are commonly denied

access to state education.

40A man with leprosy came to him (Jesus) and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." 41Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" 42Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. 43Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44"See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." 45Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

  The LORD said to Moses, "Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has an infectious skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body. Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them." The Israelites did this; they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the LORD had instructed Moses. Numbers 5:1-4

"The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.” Leviticus 13:45-46