Taking Bangladesh to Zero-Leprosy, One New Case at a Time

Sandhya Mandal - a community health worker working on leprosy in Meherpur district of Bangladesh. Credit: Stella Paul / IPSBy Stella PaulDHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 11 2019 (IPS) Sandhya Mandal has never felt so vindicated. For the past four years, the 36-year-old community health worker from Meherpur – a rural district bordering India – has been traveling 50 km every day along dusty roads on an old motorbike, searching for leprosy patients who needed urgent treatment. But in her community, instead of compliments, neighbours and relatives raised questions about her work and her character. “They ask why I come home so late and what is this ‘work’ that I really do. Some even imply that I might be doing something like prostitution,” Mandal tells IPS. However, Mandal – project manager at an NGO called Shalom, which works with the government to end leprosy, sat in an audience of diplomats, ministers and health experts from all over the country, listening to Sheikh Hasina – the prime minister of Bangladesh – at a national conference on leprosy. “Nobody can doubt me or my work now,” she says, proudly clutching the yellow invitation card she received from the organizers of the conference – her first to a national-level event. Mandal has every reason to be in the conference: since 2015 she has searched and found over 300 new leprosy cases. In fact, in November this year, she found 10 new cases on a single day – the result of an intense door-to-door search in Gan...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Asia-Pacific Conferences Development & Aid Featured Headlines Health Human Rights Labour Poverty & SDGs TerraViva United Nations National Leprosy Conference - Dhaka 2019 Source Type: news