Dan Izzett lost a lot of his possessions to leprosy, which he describes as a "old, interesting, very unkind disease," throughout the course of its 70-year physical toll.
The Zimbabwean pastor and former civil engineering technician was just five years old when he was initially diagnosed with the illness, at the age of 25, in 1972.
The leprosy-causing bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae, had plenty of opportunity to propagate throughout his body during that protracted incubation period.
In the 1980s, the Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, amputated his right leg. Izzett, who is now 75, is numb above his elbows, below his knees, and in 70% of his face.
In a phone conversation from his home in southwest England, Izzett warned AFP that this lack of emotion poses a "continuous danger."
He claimed that in October 2020, "I put my hands on a hot skillet and hadn't seen it until I could smell my flesh burning," which resulted in the loss of his right hand's middle finger.
His left foot's little toe was severed the following year. He lost another toe a month ago.
Izzett claimed that he made the decision to share his story since millions of less fortunate survivors were prevented from doing so, in part because of the stigma and discrimination that still surround the illness.
Since at least 4,000 years ago, leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, has plagued people, frequently affecting the most underprivileged areas.
The World Health Organization classifies it as a neglected tropical disease, and compared to many other disorders, it is still poorly understood and rarely mentioned.
According to the WHO, more than 140,500 new cases were found globally in 2021, with around 75 percent occurring in Brazil, India, and Indonesia.
There are concerns that tens of thousands of cases may have gone untreated as a result of pandemic-related disruptions, which have reduced case detection rates by almost 40% annually.
Even before the pandemic, the official statistics were probably not accurate.
Leprosy expert Bertrand Cauchoix of the Raoul Follereau Foundation in France remarked, "We know the number of individuals who have been tested, but we do not count the forgotten, undiagnosed victims.
This is due in part to the illness's potentially 20-year incubation period. Patients may potentially infect their family members while waiting for testing and diagnosis.
Izzett claimed that before getting his diagnosis, "my wife caught the sickness from me."
Izzett received the antibiotic Dapsone in the 1970s, which was a lifelong prescription at the time.
Midway through the 1980s, a set of medications known as multidrug treatment (MDT), which included Dapsone, became widely accessible. Leprosy can be cured over the course of a year, but the disease still leaves behind nerve damage and other effects.
After receiving a leprosy diagnosis in 2010, Mathias Duck, a former chaplain in the Paraguayan capital Asuncion, only required six months of MDT.
The 44-year-old told AFP, "I consider myself the luckiest person affected by leprosy because I was diagnosed and treated in time and as a result I have no impairments at all.
Since 2000, Swiss pharmaceutical behemoth Novartis has donated MDT dosages to the WHO, which offers it free of charge to patients around the world.
New treatments haven't made much improvement, though.
Only philanthropic gifts can be used to combat leprosy, according to Cauchoix.
Every new antibiotic created for other illnesses is evaluated by Alexandra Aubry, a specialist at the Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases in France, to see if it can also be used to treat leprosy.
One of the few laboratories in the world that can conduct studies on the leprosy bacteria, which cannot live in a petri dish, is hers.
According to her, they are looking for a way to "simplify" the treatment so that it takes less than six months.
A few vaccines are also being developed, albeit they are still in the early stages of human testing.
Funding for this is extremely difficult to obtain, according to Aubry.
Because of the lengthy incubation period for the disease, she added, "you have to observe the vaccinated population for 10 to 15 years to judge the efficiency of a vaccine."
Leprosy initiatives are "a drop in the bucket" in comparison to how quickly the globe reacted to Covid, according to Duck, who called for much greater investigation and political action.
To commemorate World Leprosy Day on Sunday, he emphasised that everyone should cease using the term "leper."
Duck referred to it as the "L word" and remarked that it was offensive.
Giving leprosy victims "the dignity they deserve" is a simple step that most people can take, he continued.
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