Drugs Don’t Cure Leprosy
Christopher J. Doyle
President, American Leprosy Mission

I can almost hear it now. Doctors, researchers and other leprosy experts who read the title to this article are saying, “What is wrong with this fellow? Doesn’t he know anything about leprosy? He’s supposed to be the president of ALM and he doesn’t even know about the miraculous cure?”

Please hear me out. Of course we all know that multidrug therapy (MDT) kills the bacteria that causes Hansen’s disease (leprosy). We do have an effective antibiotic treatment. The World Health Organization will tell you we have “cured” over 14 million people in the past decade. That is quite an accomplishment.

But what that really means is that from a clinical perspective, people no longer have the leprosy bacteria present in their bodies, or at least the bacteria has been rendered incapable of infecting others. For many people that is far from being cured.
The reason is that leprosy is not primarily a disease; it is a disability.

I must give credit for this title to Dr. Carlos Wiens who works at the Mennonite leprosy hospital in Ascuncion, Paraguay. On a visit I made there early in my leprosy career, he introduced me to the concept that MDT does not cure leprosy. The more I thought about it, the more I decided he was telling the truth. Even if we could give MDT to every possible or known case in the world today we would not even be close to really curing the disease because we still would have to deal with the disability side of leprosy. And we would not have touched people where Christ wants us to touch them, in their hearts and souls.

For many people who receive the cure for leprosy there still exists strong stigma. Patients and former patients throughout the world still suffer discrimination, marginalization, ostracism and sometime outright cruelty. They are abandoned by family, friends and community. They are forced to leave home and live in hospitals, leprosy-affected communities and sometimes on the streets.

During her ministry on earth, Mother Teresa cared for many leprosy patients. She recognized early on that the scars on their bodies were nothing compared to the festering pain within.

“Being unwanted is the most terrible disease that human beings can experience,” she said. “The only cure can lie in willing hands to serve and hearts to go on loving them.” Mother Teresa’s evangelism was simple and effective: she loved as Christ loved.
For centuries stigma has been legitimized in codes and laws. People in some “leprosy colonies” were banned from using the coins of their land. Special “leprosy” currency was created. Leprosy-affected people have been forbidden to marry. Their children have been taken away. Where not actually “legitimized,” it has, nonetheless, separated wives from their husbands, and husbands from their jobs.

Thus the cure for leprosy requires a ruthless assault upon stigma. A call for justice. A passion to “do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” Those who have leprosy or who have once had the disease must be free to marry, to live wherever they desire and to live normal lives in their communities. That’s why ALM promotes community education, training of health care workers, and regional and national media campaigns. Why we empower self-help women’s groups, and provide scholarships to help children break the grip of leprosy upon their minds and spirits. And why we support the work of IDEA (the International Association for Integration, Dignity and Economic Advancement), the first international organization whose leadership is largely composed of people who have personally faced the challenges of leprosy. It’s why we work wherever possible with religious communities.

Sadly, many of the false ideas associated with leprosy have their roots in the church. Happily, in many regions, the church is leading the campaign for love, acceptance, and renewal. Jesus reached out to many of the outcasts of society, including those with leprosy. And we can do no less. As Christians, we must continue to reach out not only to those with leprosy, but also AIDS patients, the poor, the disabled, the disfigured and the deformed. Reach out with love that can open the door to the gospel.

The World Health Organization reports that another half million people get leprosy each year. Seventeen percent are children. Many of these will experience what some cultures call “a living death.” Others will feel the sting of epitaphs: “cursed,” “witch,” and worse. Some, like 16-year-old Lidia in Angola will be denied food and water when hospital nurses discover the real cause of her weakened hands and eyes. Others will rise triumphantly upon the wings of hymns and psalms delivered by Christian field workers and hospitals. They will experience healing.

American Leprosy Missions celebrates 100 years of service in 2006. We’ve ministered to countless thousands, long before there was a cure for this dreaded disease. (Some would argue that the cure for leprosy has actually worked as a distraction to the core of our ministry). We have followed the steps of missionaries like Wellesley Bailey who reported from the Punjab in 1869:
“In one row, a group assembled for worship. They were in all stages of the malady, very terrible to look upon. I almost shuddered, yet I was at the time fascinated, and I felt, if ever there was a Christlike work in this world, it was to go among these poor sufferers and bring to them the consolation of the Gospel.”

REHABILITATION:
Leprosy carries with it additional disabilities beyond stigma. There is economic, social, physical, spiritual, psychological and emotional disability. All these areas may require different interventions if a full cure is to be brought to the person affected by leprosy. There is a lot of rehabilitation to be done.

Even after they are “cured,” many leprosy-affected people risk disabilities. They will wound their anesthetic hands and feet to the point of crippling. That is why we advocate effective Prevention of Disabilities (POD) programs in every country where leprosy is prevalent. Prevention of disabilities has many benefits not the least of which is the cost savings to the community and society that results when a disability is prevented from ever happening.

ALM takes POD services to those affected by leprosy by offering training programs and materials to front line workers around the world. This gives Christian health care workers more interaction with patients, and, therefore, more opportunities to share the love of Christ. Sometimes by word and sometimes by deed. Where governments are opposed to the Gospel, we still fit prostheses, perform cataract surgeries, and deliver food to remote leprosy villages. Where we can’t say His Word, we can still be His hands and feet.

Cures must include “medicine” for economic disability: income generation opportunities, micro-credit programs and job training. We must do real development and not give a handout but a hand up. We must not be guilty of giving a man a fish so he can eat for a day but we must teach him how to fish so that he can eat for a lifetime.

A cure must be offered for physical disabilities. We will continually need to train surgeons and physical therapists to deal with the physical consequences of leprosy. We will need referral centers for many years to come where those affected by leprosy can go for treatment and get the best medical care available. Expertise must be maintained otherwise many will go unserved or be neglected.

A cure must be offered for social disabilities. A lot of work must be done at the community level to educate family members and neighbors about leprosy and alleviate fears and misconceptions about the disease. Patients and former patients must be able to reintegrate into society and be accepted as a person that has had any other disease. This kind of cure will only come as organizations focus on community development that is inclusionary in every respect.

But always, a balm must be offered for troubled spirits. This is why ALM works with churches and mission partners in Angola Thailand, India, and many other places of the globe. It is why Dr. Jacques Kongawi projects the Jesus video onto the side of his clinic van deep within the jungles of the D.R. Congo and why health workers in India gather for prayer under the shady baobab tree before beginning their village clinic. It is why missionary doctor, Jean Pierre Bréchet, leans close to his patients, touches them tenderly, and asks them, “How can I pray for you?” It is why the ALM staff meets every week to pray for the projects and people who will be an extension of Christ’s love in word and deed. And why, even in regions that reject Christ’s word, we continue to be Christ’s witness.

Sometimes, we grieve because our prayers cannot restore fingers and feet. Sometimes we grieve because they cannot restore the boyhood a crippled old man might have had if we’d only reached him in his youth. But over and over again, we rejoice. Not once, but many times, leprosy patients have told us, “I am glad I got this disease. If it were not for leprosy, I would not have come to this hospital. If I had not come to this hospital, I would never have known Jesus Christ.”

THE REAL CURE
Christian writer and surgical pioneer, Dr. Paul Brand, who served leprosy sufferers in India for many years said this:
“The person with leprosy loses touch in more than one way. Not only does this horrible disease get into the nerves of his arms and destroy them and strangle them so that he can never again feel with his fingers, but somehow, and for some reason I cannot understand, this same germ gets between him and his friends, gets between him and his employer, gets between him and his community and builds a barrier so that a man who had experienced the loving warm greetings of his friends before, who had a job and could earn his living, finds that people turn away, that the children will run from him because they have been told by their parents they mustn’t associate with this man who has leprosy. He is treated with a superstitious kind of fear. And so it is that leprosy is a lonely disease.”

Dr. Brand believed that
“more than any other person in the world the person with leprosy needs to be treated by somebody who will reach out his hand in the name of the Lord Jesus and touch him because, in that personal touch backed by love and affection and devotion and compassion, we are mediating the love of Jesus Christ that this man, isolated by the world, should be welcomed into the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

MDT has truly been a miracle. It has helped many millions of people and prevented many disabilities. But for all its good it does not cure leprosy. It will take many more years and much more work to bring the full cure to those affected by the disease. ALM and other mission agencies must reach out to people affected by diseases like leprosy with the love of Christ and be willing to touch them and love them into the kingdom.
Bringing the real cure for leprosy will not be done until all the disabilities associated with the disease have been addressed. And it will not be done until all have heard the Good News of the Gospel from the one who can heal all of our hurts and wipe all of our tears away. Then we can say, “Leprosy has been cured!”