Boishaki and her father
Boishaki is 13. Her father, Ram Babu, sat with us as we spoke to her. He was clearly worried about the impact of leprosy on her life. The family live in a very simple house – one big room with mud walls and corrugated metal roof, like most of the houses in the area.
She has one brother who is eight years old. Her mother and father also have leprosy – both are tea pickers
Boishaki has several white patches on her face. It started as only two patches but more keep appearing and as a young teenager she’s very conscious of this. She seemed uncomfortable at times and often looked down as we talked to her.
She was diagnosed with leprosy six months ago by TLM health workers who came to her home doing contact tracing of a known leprosy case in her community. Jiptha told us there are around 80 new cases in this very small area – leprosy is spreading fast.
She was very sad when she found out she had leprosy and she stopped going to school for a month as she wanted to hide the patches on her face. She is still trying to hide the fact she has leprosy from her school friends so she’s calling it a ‘skin disease’.
When asked how she feels she said she is scared she is getting more patches on her face and worried about what people will think.
She was diagnosed as a PB case and given MDT for 6 months but more patches are appearing – it’s likely thought that she is probably actually an MB case and if so she will need a longer course of Multidrug therapy. She has no other visible symptoms of leprosy.
She likes drawing and Bengali at school – said she might want to be an artist.
She also likes Kabadi and playing football. She supports some local Bangladeshi teams.
Her father worries that if people know she has leprosy she may not be able to go to school. She goes to a private school at the moment. The family live outside the tea gardens so there is stigma around leprosy in the community here [usually tea estates provide people with accommodation and within these communities there are low levels of stigma].
Both Boishaki and her father seemed very anxious about the future and the impact of leprosy on their family.