‘It’s spreading faster than we’ve ever seen’: the mission to halt leprosy in Bangladesh’s tea gardens

Despite the WHO declaring it eliminated in 1998, thousands of tea pickers have caught the diseaseAloka Gonju didn’t take much notice of the discoloured patch of skin on her left hand until her fingers began to stiffen and hurt. It became a struggle to pick leaves at the tea plantation where she works in Bangladesh.“I had no idea what was happening to me,” says the 47-year-old, whose wages support her husband, four children and three grandchildren. Continue reading...