By Marie Magleby

Leprosy. It conjures up horrific images of disfiguration and disease. It comes with a stigma that's almost impossible to overcome. In many cases, lepers are so mistreated they might as well have "untouchable" written across their foreheads.

Many believe leprosy is a biblical infirmity that no longer plagues the world today, but it does. And it shouldn't, according to health specialists. Medical breakthroughs in the 1940s and 1960s made leprosy an entirely curable disease.

With these medical breakthroughs the question remains why nearly 300,000 people have the disease today. Physicians agree the cause is lack of access to the medicine.

"It's almost entirely a disease of poverty in developing countries," said Chad Swanson, an emergency medical physician who has dealt with leprosy in Peru and Mozambique.

Treatment of leprosy is a lengthy process - six to 12 months - so making it more accessible means more than handing out care packages. It requires improving a nation's health system.

Modern cases of leprosy are concentrated in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"It's been years since we had a case that was reported [in Utah County]," said Joseph Miner, County Health Department director. "When we do see it, it's foreign-born."

The World Health Organization instigated global efforts in 1991 that decreased the prevalence of leprosy by 90 percent in 2000.

Novartis Pharmaceuticals and the Nippon Foundation of Japan are two of the biggest movers and shakers in funding the fight against leprosy.

However, nine countries still consider leprosy a public health problem, and the World Health Organization continues intensive efforts to curb the disease in Brazil, India, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nepal.

Leprosy is a biblical name for Hansen's disease, a bacterial disease related to tuberculosis. It attacks the skin and nerves, and when untreated, it causes numbness and rashes. If prolonged for years, the bacteria can grow and deteriorate the hands and legs down to stubs.

The social stigma of leprosy can be as painful as the symptoms. Leper colonies still exist in some countries, not necessarily because the disease is contagious, but because people would rather keep to themselves and save their families from shame.

The Carville Hospital was a leprosy treatment center in Louisiana that closed in 1998. Now, the National Hansen's Disease Program has a museum in Baton Rouge to showcase leprosy's history.

Until 1969, lepers in Hawaii were forced into isolation in Kalaupapa, Moloka'i. Some victims still choose to live out their lives there to avoid the humiliation of rejoining society with disfiguring wounds.

Joseph and JoAnn Goodrich volunteered at a leper colony in Egypt while serving a full-time LDS mission there.

They helped clean and renovate the facilities so residents could have clean water, warm showers and toilets. Until then, conditions were "so deplorable," Joseph Goodrichsaid.

LDS humanitarian services donates leper bandages to several locations around the world.

Before their mission, Joseph Goodrich said they did not think leprosy was still an issue.

"I thought leprosy was done away with," he said. "It wasn't even on my radar screen."

Copyright Brigham Young University 15 Jan 2008