Apoorva Mandavilli Probes India’s Push to Eliminate Leprosy

Leprosy’s victims suffer visible pockmarks, deformed limbs, and a lifetime of social ostracism. Yet the microbe responsible for this suffering remains elusive. Last year, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the country’s government had shirked its responsibility to patients and that officials had failed to count the number of patients correctly. The news piqued Apoorva Mandavilli’s interest and led her to track down how clinics and patients cope with this ancient disease.