Chit San Win - Insect-bitten flowers

The day when leprosy will truly be eradicated

This disease is a life of constant humiliation, humiliation that sufferers have suffered for centuries. When people call us lepers, we feel pain in our ears. This knowledge hurts in our ears before it reaches our liver and heart. Myanmar has been declared free of leprosy since 2003. This is the time when it will be free from medical opinion, this is the time when it will be free from planning, but the day when leprosy will actually be eliminated will be the day when people will start to treat leprosy like other diseases such as whooping cough, tuberculosis, malaria, etc.

Tuberculosis is a deadly disease. If TB is cured and there is no infection, then the person is a good person, and he can return to the community. But leprosy is not like that. Whether there is infection or not, whether there is infection or not, once a person has leprosy, they are called a leprosy for the rest of their lives.

U Win Maung (Nanthar Myaing)                                                                                                     

A disease that cannot be sympathized with.

People can understand leprosy, and they can sympathize with it, but leprosy is not a disease that can be sympathized with. Without being a leper themselves, without having leprosy themselves, we cannot experience the life of a leper. Doctors and health workers who treat leprosy are people who can be called saints. They are truly compassionate and selfless towards us, people who are loving and kind. Even among doctors, if they are leprosy doctors, other doctors do not want to sit next to each other, they sit at a distance. If even the doctors who treat us are so ostracized, we can understand how much we are ostracized. Such compassionate leprosy doctors know more about the treatment of leprosy than we do. That is why doctors who treat leprosy and researchers are discovering the cure for leprosy, leprosy patients do not discover the cure. "But the leprosy doctors may know more about leprosy than we do, but they can never fully understand, feel, or empathize with the lives of the patients as we can. Leprosy is not a disease that can be sympathized with."

U Ohn Maung (Dantharyaing)