【Yohei Sasakawa Around the World】 (7) Visit to the Former Leprosy Hospital in the U.S. in 2009

I would like to share with you a video taken during my visit to Carville, Louisiana, the United States, in October 2009 to tour the National Hansen’s Disease Museum as chairman of The Nippon Foundation and WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination.

For over a century, from 1894 to 1999, Carville was the location of the only in-patient hospital in the continental U.S. for treating leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. Some of the most important leprosy research of the 20th century was carried out there, and it formed an extraordinary community of men and women forced into exile in their own country because they had leprosy.

Although the leprosarium has since closed, various buildings remain, and the history of those years is told in the impressive National Hansen’s Disease Museum. It relates patients’ stories, developments in the disease’s treatment, and contains many cultural and medical artifacts from the more than 100-year history of the leprosarium.

During the visit, I talked with a few long-term Carville residents who chose to remain after the leprosarium closed.

Leprosy is now quite rare in the United States, but cases continue to be reported. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are around 150 to 250 cases of leprosy each year, with most occurring in people who have lived countries where the disease is still endemic.