In Senegal, President Macky Sall announced the abolition of the special status of villages for social reclassification. These villages – nine in the country – were created during colonization to keep lepers out of society and are governed by a law from 1976. But the inhabitants want to see this discriminatory status disappear, while they are forced to leave society. But leprosy has not been a public health problem since 1995. Report from one of these villages.
Ofour correspondent in Dakar,
In the midst of his healthy children and grandchildren, Cheikh Fall, an 81-year-old former leper, recounts how he was chased away by his family. With his fingers amputated, he arrived at this village with social reclassification in 1962. suffered a lot, there was a stigma even of our close relatives, because before there was no medicine to cure leprosy. Many Senegalese now know that leprosy can be cured. That is why there is less stigma. ”
For ten days, a team from the National Leprosy Elimination Program visited every house in this village of 3,000 inhabitants, and no cases of the infectious disease were detected. After taking the weight for each family member, dermatologist Dr. Fatou Dioples examines them one by one and then gives them a preventative treatment. Leprosy is detected by examining the skin for a spot. The color is less dark than the skin. We then do a skin test if there is a stain, she explains.
For Abdoulaye Mar, head of the quartier, it is important to prove the absence of leprosy in order to abolish the discriminatory status of “the village of social reclassification.” “We do not have the same rights as other villages,” he said. The village for social reclassification is not in the survey of the country. That is, we are eliminated from Senegal. It is unfair. We want to be like all other villages. ”
President Macky Sall has promised a “definitive abolition” of this charter. A news that satisfies Papa Mamadou Diagne, president of the Senegalese association for the fight against leprosy. “It was a long struggle to repeal this law which is obsolete, especially since there are almost no more lepers in the villages with social reclassification. Those who live there do not have the right to extend the country. I was once criticized for taking the seeds. given to farmers because I came from a village that was not on the Senegalese map, hence the interest in repealing this law, he concludes.
In Senegal, only 189 cases of leprosy were detected in 2019 in the entire territory.
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