Living under the shadow of leprosy in Vietnam

Watching the days go by: Survivor Nguyen Thi Teo sitting outside her room at the Van Mon Leprosy hospice in Thai Binh province. — AFP

Vu Thu: Tran Huu Hoa was scared, desperate and on the verge of suicide after his leprosy diagnosis in 1958, fearing he’d never work or marry in an age when lepers were completely shunned from Vietnam­ese society.

He could not imagine he would find new life at the leprosy hospice where he has been living for 61 years, a walled off compound in northern Thai Binh province where he met his wife, worked as a union boss and took in needy children.