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Indonesia: He was a leper and is now changing the lives of others suffering from the disease with handmade prostheses.

New legs cured of leprosy in Indonesia | Font: AFP or licensors | Photographer: ISMOYO BAY

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Ali Saga recalls how, 40 years ago, he entered a clinic in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, and upon seeing him, patients and staff fled in horror.

“Suddenly the doctor shouted at the patients, +leave me alone!, this leper !+,” recalls the 57-year-old man, barely holding back tears.

They pricked him with a syringe to see how sensitive his skin was. “My skin may not have felt anything, but my soul was grieving,” says this former patient, who was diagnosed in the 70s.

Your pain today serves a good cause. On the outskirts of Jakarta, Ali Saga delivers handmade prostheses affected residents to help them return to normal life.

Pathology is sometimes considered shameful, leprosy It is a contagious disease affecting the skin and peripheral nerves with potentially very serious consequences. Currently, a biopsy is enough to diagnose the disease, and antibiotics are used to treat it.

So much former lepers, Saga lives in the town of Tangerang, where the Sitanala Hospital is located. Many patients were treated there, and some remained to live there.

“Leper colony”

Because of the presence of these patients, long considered outcasts, the local media called the city, located near Jakarta, “leper colony”.

This happens as a consequence of accepted ideas, which are still very stable. Many Indonesians in fact, they believe that leprosy, called Hansen’s disease, is a divine curse that only requires a brief contact to infect him.

ali saga He fights this disease in his own way, which has physiological and social consequences for the patient.

In my dusty workshop body prostheses They hang on the walls in anticipation of a life change.

Like Kung San, a 70-year-old resident of Saga who is able to get back up after having one leg amputated as a youth and losing the other in 2007.

“I thought I would never be able to walk again… but now I am so grateful that I can walk normally again,” said the old man, who earns his living as a tailor.

After Brazil and India, Indonesia This is the country in which the most leprosy patients are infected through constant contact with untreated patients.

On the margins of World Leprosy Day on Sunday, the Indonesian Ministry of Health registered 15,000 people being treated for leprosy. leprosyof which 11,000 new cases were registered last year.

About 500 former victims are living in Tanerang after being treated at the hospital.

The Sitanala Center made headlines in 1989 when Princess Diana shook hands with an infected patient.

Often, most of these patients work part-time as sweepers or rickshaw drivers.

Thanks to ali sagathey return to enjoy some comfort and are able to complete the task normally.

normal deal

Jumangun is one of the beneficiaries. The 60-year-old driver lost his leg in his youth and for a long time had to make do with a bamboo stump, since a real prosthesis was very expensive.

“It hurt and I still had to use a cane to keep from falling while walking,” he told AFP.

Then he got a new leg made by Ali Saga for free. “It’s like a normal foot and I don’t feel pain when walking,” Jumangan said.

AND prosthesis it can cost up to IDR 10 million (about €614), but Ali Saga offers some of them for free or accepts small amounts for them.

Since 2005, he says he has made over 5,000 artificial legs for clients around the world. Indonesia.

According to experts, leprosy It has yet to be eradicated due to prejudices that cause patients to avoid getting help within the medical system.

If these barriers are not removed, “contagion will continue and the effects of the disease will continue to manifest,” Asken Sinaga, director of NLR Indonesia, a non-governmental organization that fights leprosy, lamented.

Indonesia aims to eradicate the disease by next year.

For now, those affected by the disease expect to be treated the same as everyone else. “I hope they don’t judge us anymore,” Sun says.

AFP


Source: RPP

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