Photos and Images from SARVASHUBHAMKARA an organization that works with 'forgotten people' of the Indian subcontinent.

Leprosy is a bacterial disease that destroys the peripheral and motor nerves.

It’s easy to forget that leprosy as an active disease is a reality for millions of people in the world today.

One person is officially diagnosed with leprosy every fifty seconds, making some 2,000 new cases every day, and some 600,000 every year.

The World Health Organization estimates that, between 2010 and 2020, a further 7.5 million people will be infected

Leprosy remains most prominent in areas of poor hygiene, overcrowding and poor nutrition.

It is calculated that at least some 2.5 million people affected by leprosy still await the most basic medical care in India

Leprosy is not hereditary and is the least contagious of all communicable diseases.

The greatest problem for those diagnosed with leprosy is the total social ostracisation they suffer.

... these lonely, physically damaged people remain wholly rejected by all members of society

People who bear the stigma of the disease are invariably reduced to living in isolated communities.

The children of parents who have suffered with leprosy... are commonly denied access to state education.

40 A man with leprosy came to him (Jesus) and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." 41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. 43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 "See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

The LORD said to Moses, "Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has an infectious skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body. Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them." The Israelites did this; they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the LORD had instructed Moses. Numbers 5:1-4

"The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.” Leviticus 13:45-46