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 Hansen’s disease, or Leprosy as it is more commonly referred, is a sickness that today holds an almost mythical status. It is a disease that most more commonly associate with the Middle Ages than with today, a disease more likely to be read about in a book than the news.
Perhaps this is because, for all intensive services it is a disease that no longer does exist in the modern world, but only in the backwaters of the less developed world.
Leprosy is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. It is now thought that the main method of transmission of the bacterium is through nasal secretions. Only through close and prolonged contact, though, is the disease really contagious and, even then, only to the 5% of humans that are physically susceptible to it.
The traditional approach to halting the spread of the disease in the past has been to quarantine victims of the disease in Leper colonies. Today even with a heightened knowledge of the disease, many such colony’s still exist, though now perhaps just as much to protect Leprosy victims from outside stigma, rather than healthy individuals from catching the disease.
Baraka village is one such existing leprosy colony, nestled on the outskirts of Msambweni town in the coastal region of Kenya. A Kenyan born Dutchman constructed it in 2005 in order to provide Leprosy victims all over Kenya with both shelter and a place to escape the stigma attached to the disease.
Today Baraka is home to over thirty Leprosy sufferers, as well as many of their families. With access to the district hospital just two kilometers away, all of those with the disease have now been treated in order to make the disease not contagious.
Although a close knit and safe community, one of the largest problems still facing those living in Baraka is employment. Through a combination of the disabilities caused by the disease, and the stigma attached to it, most of those in the village are forced to make a living through begging. To do this many head two hours up the road each week to the city of Mombasa. There they join the multitude of other beggars lining the streets asking tourists and other pedestrians for money. Often such trips take several days, as the lepers need to earn enough money not just to pay for their transportation back, but to have enough money left over to live off of as well.
The World Health Organization in 2000 declared that Leprosy no longer posed a public health problem. Worldwide, though, two to three million people are estimated to still be living with the debilitating affects of the disease. Furthermore due to its difficulty to detect and long incubation period, it may still be many years before the disease has been eradicated completely. View Gallery 
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