Leprosy and dermatology Hospital

Today we spent the day at the leprosy hospital in Bangkok. We had clinical lectures about how to prevent, diagnose, treatment, and side affects of drugs for leprosy. It was interesting because they skipped leprosy in my microbiology class because there were only 10 cases in the US last year (they were from armadillos in Texas!!) However, there were over 400,000 people who were diagnosed in the world last year (mostly India, Brazil, and Africa.)I always thought that leprosy was painful because of the sores that they had. Most of the sores are painless. When it actually causes nerve damage, which keeps people from injuring themselves, tissues die without the nerve signals and falls off, and they get infections.It is an awful disease. Mostly because of the social stigma associated with it. the people and thier families were ostericized from the community and know live in slums and apartments within the hospital compound. Their children in the past weren't allowed to attend school with other children. It was hard to see people with amputations everywhere, but they were happy.Leprosy only infects 5% of people who are exposed (if you are exposed constantly like in a family house, you are more likely to come down with disease) and only with people with specific genetic characteristics and are immune compromised. It usually affects children and takes years to develop. There are other skin conditions that you develop in the tropics that are pretty awful if you have a bad immune system. Which is pretty bad if you have AIDS. AIDS is the number one killer in Thailand.I know this is off topic but I wanted to write this down because I ran out of time yesterday. We went to a maternal health hospital and we learned some interesting things about Thailand. One of the things that I thought was different was that Thais don't beleive in adoption or abortion. If a girl doesn't want her child, there is usually an aunt, cousin, grandma that will take care of the baby. It is very important to keep the family in the family.They have a huge family network for support(and pressure) because it isn't an individualistic society like we have. I thought that it was probably easier for the girl and the child because they were able to see each other but without the pressure of having to survive. I think that it is probably hard on people without children, but they have lots of opportunities to raise children because of their culture.I hope everyone is alright Scott