Leprosy survivor crafts new limbs for villagers, overcoming prejudice
  • last year
Ali Saga, a former leprosy patient, remembers one of the most devastating moments of his life when he visited a health clinic in Indonesian capital Jakarta.
"I looked like a zombie," he says. "'Stand back! this person is a leper, be careful!' I couldn't believe it's the doctor saying that."
Now he is using his pain to help other residents of a village on the outskirts of the capital to live a normal life after leprosy with hand-crafted prosthetic limbs.
After Brazil and India, Indonesia has the world's third-highest cases of leprosy -- a contagious bacterial disease transmitted by prolonged close contact with untreated cases.
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