Japan's sterilised 'eugenics' victims to get payout

Yahoo – AFP, April 24, 2019

Victims of Japan's 'eugenics' programme complain the compensation offered
is not enough (AFP Photo/Toshifumi KITAMURA)

Thousands of Japanese people -- some as young as nine -- forcibly sterilised under now-defunct eugenics laws, will receive government compensation after lawmakers passed historic legislation on Wednesday.

Following the unanimous vote, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe voiced "sincere regret" and said the government "apologised wholeheartedly" over the notorious policy.

Some 16,500 mentally disabled people were sterilised without their consent under the law that remained in force until 1996, according to health ministry data.

Each victim will receive 3.2 million yen ($29,000) under the measures passed on Wednesday -- an amount derided by campaigners as "failing to meet the seriousness" of the damage suffered.

The issue hit the headlines last year after a Japanese woman, now in her 60s, sued the government over a sterilisation operation carried out in 1972 after she was diagnosed with a mental disability.

Lawyers and campaigners have long criticised the government and parliament for failing to compensate victims long after the eugenics law was abandoned in 1996.

About 20 victims have so far filed lawsuits across the country seeking compensation of up to 38 million yen.

The first verdict over the issue will be announced on May 28, and plaintiffs' lawyers have vowed to seek compensation they say matches the gravity of the harm suffered.

"It is understandable that lawmakers have been hurrying to enact the law to pay one-off compensation to ageing victims," lawyers said in a statement before the legislation was passed.

But without sufficient compensation, it is not a "true solution to the issue," they charged.

Tokyo has pledged to pay the compensation "swiftly" but the government will likely continue to battle in court against victims claiming more.

Germany and Sweden had similar eugenics laws and governments there have also apologised and paid compensation to the victims.

Under Japan's law, some leprosy patients were also forced into abortions under policies that forbade them from having children.

In 2005, a Japanese court for the first time ordered the state to pay damages to a former leprosy sufferer affected by this law.

USAID launches latest clean-up for Vietnam War-era Agent Orange site

Yahoo – AFP, April 20, 2019

A Vietnamese soldier stands next to a sign warning of toxic hazard at Bien Hoa
air base, on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City (AFP Photo/Thomas WATKINS)

Hanoi (AFP) - The US launched on Saturday a $183 million clean-up at a former Vietnam storage site for Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used in their bitter war which years later is still blamed for severe birth defects, cancers and disabilities.

Located outside Ho Chi Minh City, Bien Hoa airbase -- the latest site scheduled for rehabilitation after Danang airbase's clean-up last year -- was one of the main storage grounds for Agent Orange and only hastily cleared by soldiers near the war's end more than four decades ago.

US forces sprayed 80 million litres (21 million gallons) of Agent Orange over South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 in a desperate bid to flush out Viet Cong communist guerrillas by depriving them of tree cover and food.

The spillover from the clearing operation is believed to have seeped beyond the base and into ground water and rivers, and is linked to severe mental and physical disabilities across generations of Vietnamese -- from enlarged heads to deformed limbs.

At Bien Hoa, more than 500,000 cubic metres of dioxin had contaminated the soil and sediment, making it the "largest remaining hotspot" in Vietnam, said a statement from the US development agency USAID, which kicked off a 10-year remediation effort on Saturday.

The dioxin amounts in Bien Hoa are four times more than the volume cleaned up at Danang airport, a six-year $110 million effort which was completed in November.

"The fact that two former foes are now partnering on such a complex task is nothing short of historic," said the US ambassador to Vietnam, Daniel Kritenbrink, at Saturday morning's launch attended by Vietnamese military officials and US senators.

Hanoi says up to three million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, and that one million suffer grave health repercussions today -- including at least 150,000 children with birth defects.

An attempt by Vietnamese victims to obtain compensation from the United States has met with little success. The US Supreme Court in 2009 declined to take up the case while neither the US government nor the manufacturers of the chemical have ever admitted liability.

While US officials have never admitted direct links between Agent Orange and birth defects, USAID on Saturday also issued a "memorandum of intent" to work with government agencies to improve the lives of people with disabilities in seven Vietnamese provinces.

Indonesian third-grader's 'school crawl' becomes sensation

Yahoo – AFP, December 20, 2018

Mukhlis Abdul Holik's heartwarming story has become a sensation across
Indonesia (AFP Photo/CANTIGIE NUR FERDINAND)

Sukabumi (Indonesia) (AFP) - Indonesian third-grader Mukhlis Abdul Holik begins the long haul to school with a knapsack strapped to his back and hands stuffed into a pair of sandals -- to guard against road burn.

It is no ordinary trip for the eight-year-old. He has severely deformed feet and legs so tiny that he only reaches up to his classmates' waists when standing.

With his mom in tow, the gap-toothed pupil crawls from his West Java village across rocky paths and an old wooden bridge that he navigates on his hands alone, as his sneakers dangle in the air.

Holik crawls from his West Java village across rocky paths and an old wooden 

bridge that he navigates on his hands alone, as his sneakers dangle in the air 

(AFP Photo/CANTIGIE NUR FERDINAND)

Holik's heartwarming story has become a sensation across the country of 260 million, and earned him a meeting with Indonesian president Joko Widodo, after media covered his trip to school and back -- a distance of nearly six kilometres.

"The road is steep but he crawls every day," said Holik's mother Pipin, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"If we've got money, then he can take a motorcycle taxi but if things are tight, he's got to crawl. He never complains.... rain or shine, he always goes to school."

Holik declared himself "very happy" after meeting Indonesian President 

Joko Widodo (AFP Photo/CANTIGIE NUR FERDINAND)

Holik met the country's leader on December 3 -- the UN's International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

"I asked Abdul when we met if he wanted anything from me," Widodo said in a statement.

"I thought he'd want me to give him a present. But he didn't want anything. He just said he wanted to go to university."

The pupil declared himself "very happy" for meeting his idol Widodo, who got a full report on Holik's ambitious future plans.

"I want to be a firefighter, a doctor and an astronaut," he told AFP.

Italian wheelchair hopes to bring users freedom

Yahoo – AFP, Céline CORNU, July 28, 2017

Mario Vigentini, left, drew inspiration from the Segway for his new wheelchair
(AFP Photo/MIGUEL MEDINA)

Bergamo (Italy) (AFP) - After nearly 20 years working with wheelchair-bound youngsters, Mario Vigentini wanted to revolutionise their quality of life, inventing a device that raises up users so they are face-to-face with those standing.

The Italian drew inspiration from the Segway -- the two-wheeled, self-balancing, electric vehicle that allows visitors to nip around cities without walking -- and came up with the "MarioWay", a hands-free, two-wheeled kneeling chair.

With its high seat, it allows users to do everything from ordering a coffee at a bar to plucking a book off a high shelf.

The Italian government was so impressed it proudly showed off the chair to the G7 transport ministers in June.

The aim was to create "a tool of social integration", Vigentini told AFP at his headquarters in Bergamo.

The 45-year-old found working with young people with mental and physical disabilities "an extraordinary adventure", but was disheartened by the prejudice they faced.

"At best, people approached them like a child," he said, as if because they were sitting closer to the ground they were somehow more infantile.

Racking his brains for a way to change the situation, he came up with the idea of "trying to put an ergonomic seat -- like those from the Nordic countries that were very fashionable in the 1990s -- on a Segway".

"Nine out of ten people I talked to about this idea looked at me as if I came from another planet," he said.

But he was persuaded to take the idea to a start-up competition in Naples in 2012 -- and made it to the final.

Curing wheelchair ills

Buoyed, he set up a team to study the ergonomics involved and brought in a dozen disabled people as collaborators.

Users of traditional wheelchairs are seated so that "the organs in the upper part of the trunk are compressed", while "almost the whole weight rests on the ischium" -- the lower and back part of the hip bone.

The chair can go up to 20 kilometres (12 miles) an hour (AFP Photo/

MIGUEL MEDINA)

This position "aggravates the pathologies of people with disabilities and results in other issues; digestive, respiratory, urinary or circulatory," he said, adding it also causes leg muscles to waste away.

But for users of Vigentini's invention, "the upper part of the trunk is straightened", strengthening muscles which go unused in traditional wheelchairs.

The chair can go up to 20 kilometres (12 miles) an hour on a battery life of 30 kilometres.

It is equipped with "sensors that read the position of the body", so that "if I move my upper body slightly forward, the MarioWay advances slightly," said Flaviano Tarducci, the company's business development manager.

"It's the same to move backwards, while to go from side to side you move your pelvis slightly left or right," he said.

Destigmatizing

The design means that tasks that have been very challenging for traditional wheelchair users -- such as opening doors or carrying a glass of water to a table -- can be carried out with relative ease.

Vigentini hopes to help destigmatize the wheelchair, which has remained unchanged for nigh on a century.

In the search for cool, his team has even swapped notes with a company that customises Harley Davidson motorbikes.

Its thermally-strengthened hubs and hand-stitched seats are not cheap. The MarioWay went on sale a few weeks ago at 19,300 euros ($22,500), while a standard electric wheelchair costs between 1,500 euros and 30,000 euros.

But Vigentini said he and his team are "doing everything we can" to lower the price to around 10,000 euros by signing a deal with an industrial production partner.

And one day he hopes able-bodied people will use MarioWay too as a means of getting about town -- much like a bicycle or Segway -- which could help make mobility differences, between those who are disabled and those who are not, a thing of the past.

Italian social educator Mario Vigentini invents 'MarioWay', a hands-free, two-wheeled kneeling chair to aid disabled https://t.co/4rn5l12Twb pic.twitter.com/K9YeXKlQNO

— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 28, 2017

Dutch vote for disabled access in public buildings

DutchNews, January 21, 2016

Photo: Depositphotos.com

MPs are poised to vote in favour of a UN treaty to ensure public buildings and public institutions are accessible to people with a physical disability, website Nu.nl says on Thursday.

‘This is an historic day for people with disabilities,’ Labour MP Otwin van Dijk told the website. ‘The Netherlands will today become one of the last countries to ratify the treaty. It is about time.’ 

The two coalition parties were divided over the issue and the health ministry had proposed a compromise in which companies would only have to adapt their premises if there was a formal request. 

This did not go far enough for the plan’s supporters. ‘Why should someone with a handicap have to beg to be admitted to a bar, a tram or a shop?’ Van Dijk, who himself uses a wheelchair, said.

The new requirement will be introduced in stages from 2017.

Wheelchair basketball gives new hope to disabled Afghan women

Yahoo – AFP, Mushtaq Mojaddidi, 29 Oct 2014

An Afghan member of the Mazar-i-Sharif wheelchair basketball team plays against

 the team from Kabul during the final of the country's third annual competition in

Kabul on October 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)

Kabul (AFP) - They have lost limbs to landmines and been disabled by mortar shrapnel, but Afghanistan's wheelchair women basketball players refuse to call themselves victims.

Clashing wheelchairs, hooting supporters and balls swishing through hoops brought a drab grey court in downtown Kabul alive Wednesday, in the final of the country's third annual competition organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

At the end of the forty minutes of play, the scoreline read Mazar-i-Sharif 26, Kabul 9 -- but for many of the athletes who took part it was also a personal triumph over years of adversity.

Mariam Samimi, a member of the winning side, was just six when she stepped on undetonated ordnance in her native northern province of Balkh, blowing off her toes.

It was 1996 and the height of Afghanistan's civil war, when prosthetics and good medical treatment were in short supply.

Now a trained social worker as well as a competitive athlete, the 23-year-old said she wanted others to know that a disability does not mean having to give up on your dreams.

"Don't be disheartened, always have courage, and do not say I can't do it. Be confident all the time, don't feel that you are disabled and (that) I should be at home," she said.

Afghanistan has been at war since 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded to prop up the communist government.

Members of the Kabul wheelchair basketball team (R) greet members of the 

Mazar-i-Sharif team in the final of the country's third annual competition in Kabul

on October 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)

After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, a civil war began. The hardline Taliban seized power in 1996 but were ousted in 2001 by a US-led coalition.

The Taliban have waged a guerrilla war ever since against Afghan and foreign troops.

The country is one of the world's most heavily mined nations, with dozens of people still killed or maimed every month.

It is also one of just three countries where polio is still a problem, due to the disruption of health services and Taliban opposition to vaccination.

Nineteen-year-old Kamila Rahimi, who helped her side to victory with five goals, has been unable to walk since she was a toddler due to the disease. When she's on the court, it doesn't matter.

"I feel very happy to be playing basketball because I like the company of my teammates. When I laugh, they laugh with me, when I cry, they cry with me," she said.

In the final Kabul took an early lead but were comfortably beaten in the end by a more polished Mazar side, as several players were forced to give up on their hijabs while whizzing around the court.

The best players from the two-day tournament, which included the western city of Herat, will go on to play for the national team, said Alberto Cairo, head of the ICRC orthopaedic programme in Afghanistan.

Twenty-three-year-old Aziza Ahmadi, who was paralysed in her left foot when shrapnel from a mortar attack on her Kabul home hit her 18 years ago, said she hoped to make the grade.

"My dream is to go to play in European countries like Italy, Germany and France," she said with a smile.

Paralysed man walks again after breakthrough spinal treatment

Yahoo – AFP, James Pheby, 21 Oct 2014

Undated picture released by the BBC shows Bulgarian man Darek Fidyka (R) walking

 with the aid of leg-braces and parallel bars at the Akron Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in 

Wroclaw, Poland after revolutionary treatment to repair a severed sinal column. (Photo

by BBC Panorama)

A paralysed Bulgarian man can walk again after receiving revolutionary treatment in Poland in a breakthrough hailed by one of the British scientists responsible as "more impressive than a man walking on the Moon".

Darek Fidyka was paralysed from the chest down following a knife attack in 2010, but can now walk using a frame after receiving treatment in which nerve cells from his nose were transplanted into his severed spinal column, according to research published in the journal Cell Transplantation on Tuesday.

"When there's nothing, you can't feel almost half of your body. You're helpless, lost," the patient, who is now recovering at the Akron Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in Wroclaw, told BBC's Panorama programme.

"When it begins to come back, you feel you've started your life all over again, as if you are reborn. It's an incredible feeling, difficult to describe," the 40-year-old said.

Specialist olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), which form part of the sense of smell, were used in the treatment as they are pathway cells, enabling nearby nerve fibres to be continually regenerated.

The treatment involved two operations.

Pawel Tabakow, consultant neurosurgeon at Wroclaw University, led a team of surgeons in removing one of the patient's olfactory bulbs before transplanting cultured cells into the spinal cord.

Scientists think that the cells, implanted above and below the injury, enabled damaged fibres to reconnect.

"What we've done is establish a principle, nerve fibres can grow back and restore function, provided we give them a bridge," said Geoff Raisman, chair of neural regeneration at University College London's Institute of Neurology, who led the British research team working on the joint project.

"To me, this is more impressive than a man walking on the Moon. I believe this is the moment when paralysis can be reversed."

Tabakow said it was "amazing to see how regeneration of the spinal cord, something that was thought impossible for many years, is becoming a reality".

'Door will open in life'

For two years after sustaining the injury, Fidyka showed no sign of recovery despite intensive five-hour physiotherapy sessions.

Undated picture released by the BBC shows Bulgarian man Darek Fidyka (R), who 

suffered a severed spinal column that rendered him paralysed, talking with Polish

 neurosurgeon Pawel Tabakow (C) and Geoff Raisman (L) in Wroclaw, Poland  (Photo

by BBC Panorama)

The first signs of improvement came three months after the surgery, when his left thigh began putting on muscle.

Three months later, Fidyka was able to take his first steps with the aid of parallel bars and leg braces. He can now walk outside using a frame and has also recovered some feeling in his bladder and bowel.

"I think it's realistic that one day I will become independent," said the patient.

"What I have learned is that you must never give up but keep fighting, because some door will open in life."

The research was funded by the UK Stem Cell Foundation and the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation (NSIF), set up by chef David Nicholls after his son Daniel was paralysed in a 2003 swimming accident.

NSIF has given £1 million ($1.6 million, 1.26 million euros) to researchers in London and £240,000 to the team in Poland. Both camps say they will not seek to profit from the research.

"It would be my proudest boast if I could say that no patient had had to pay one penny for any of the information we have found," said Raisman.

NSIF said it would acquire any patents and make them freely available.

"When Dan had his accident I made him a promise that, one day, he would walk again," Nicholls told the BBC.

"I set up the charity to raise funds purely for research into repairing the spinal cord. The results with Darek show we are making significant progress towards that goal."

The UK Stem Cell Foundation said the team was now searching for the best source of olfactory ensheathing cells and developing prototype nanofibre biomaterials on which transplanted OECs could grow.

They hope to raise enough money to hold clinical trials on 10 patients in Britain and Poland.

Related Article:

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"... DNA is a Dynamic Molecule, not a static one.

Humanity is stuck in the 3D portion of their biological thinking. In your 3-D life, you simply accept the chemistry you're given. You act as though the three percent gene producing part is all there is. You believe it is a chemical protocol that is unchangeable and simply "you." You don't see it for the way it's designed. It's dynamic and always has been. It's not set, but will continue to simply repeat what it does unless there is another quantum influence on it.

Therefore you live with the 3 percent as though it were all there is, and since it just "came with your body" and seems to control everything, you never talk to it. Many of you come in with pre-dispositions based upon the karma which is put upon you from your past lives. You don't come in clean [without karmic energy]. Instead, you arrive with pre-dispositions, fears and phobias. Some are positive. Perhaps you come in as a prodigy continuing your last life... the 8-year-old who can paint like a master and do brushstrokes that take 30 years to develop. What does that tell you about what must be in the DNA?

Perhaps you come in as the composer, the pianist, the prodigy, the violinist, just waiting until your hands can go on the fingerboard or can reach up and fret the notes. Perhaps you come in knowing how to play the piano, just waiting for your hands to get big enough to do what you used to do... without any lessons. How do you explain that, dear ones? The answer is that all this is contained in the dynamic quantum instruction sets of your DNA... the part you never talk to it.

Cell Division - a static process?

Let me take you to the cellular division process. We've said this before, but you need to hear this to understand how it works. A cell is ready to divide. The Human body is designed to rejuvenate... all tissue. You've been told that there's some tissue that does not rejuvenate, but that is incorrect. It all rejuvenates at different speeds at different times and in different ways. It rejuvenates. So now you know that the Human body is designed to live a long time. Unfortunately, the energy that you have created on this planet and what you've gone through, has beat it up. You don't live much more than 80 years. That was not the design.

The Biblical personalities were sometimes prophets and sometimes masters and sometimes just there... and lived for hundreds of years. Did they really? Or perhaps this is that just a metaphor? Did they get that right in the Bible without a error in transcription? I'm going to tell you the truth. It's very accurate. Thousands of years ago you lived a very long time, Lemurian. If you knew your lifespan, you'd gasp. But not anymore. Instructions have been given over time to DNA, literally, by the energy of the planet... en energy that you have created through consciousness.

A cell divides. Right before it divides, it needs the blueprint to clone itself. The blueprint is available from the stem cell. The stem cell gets its information from the quantum part of the DNA, which has never changed since you were born. It's remained static, since nothing has ever changed it... and the fact that you don't believe it's changeable and have just accepted aging. There's not a conscious effort to do anything with it, and it just lays there like it always did.

The diving cell "talks" to the stem cell and says, "Do the same thing you always did? Change anything?" And the stem cell talks to the cell that is dividing, saying, "Make another one just the same." Then you rejuvenate just like the last one, accepting everything you received when you were born. ..."

Leprosy: Myanmar struggles with ancient scourge

Yahoo – AFP, Kelly Macnamara, 21 Aug 2014

A patient sits on a bed at the Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital

in Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

High in the hills of Myanmar's war-torn borderlands, a clutch of new leprosy cases among communities virtually cut off from medical help is a sign that the country's battle with the ancient disease is far from over.

It took six days by plane, boat, motorcycle, bus -- and an arduous mountain trek -- for a group of medical workers to treat two leprosy patients in a remote corner of the country, where conflict and neglect are the legacy of decades of military rule and even access to basic medicines is a distant dream.

But the charity-funded medics were also on the lookout for evidence that the disease had spread.

A patient has a meal at the Mawlamyaing

 Christian Leprosy Hospital in Mawlamyaing

on March 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Ye

Aung Thu)

They soon found three more leprosy sufferers, including one man who had such a severe case he required hospital care.

"I promised him that I would come back for him or I would send someone to pick him up," said Doctor Saw Hsar Mu Lar, after the May expedition, as he returned to his hospital in Mawlamyaing, Mon state -- one of only two specialising in leprosy in Myanmar.

Weeks later the patient was still waiting to travel as tensions between the Myanmar army and local rebels closed transportation routes.

Myanmar reached so-called 'elimination' status for leprosy in 2003 -- meaning less than one person per 10,000 has the illness.

But there are still around 3,000 new cases found each year and medical workers warn that the debilitating disease could be on the rise once more as the country's creaking healthcare system fails to reach those at risk.

Decades of civil war in ethnic regions have also left vast swathes of its border areas cut off from all but the most basic medical help, meaning the disease could be passing undetected.

"There can be pocket areas, hidden areas," Saw Hsar Mu Lar told AFP.

"We have to tell the world that it's not finished yet."

A curable curse

Leprosy is one of the world's oldest -- and most feared -- diseases.

The bacteria affects the skin and deadens the nerves, meaning sufferers are prone to injure themselves, which results in ulcers and can lead to limb loss. Symptoms can take as long as 20 years to appear.

It is not particularly infectious, passing only through close contact over long periods, and modern medicine is able to cure patients relatively quickly.

A patient sits in a room at the Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital in

Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2013 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

But Myanmar has one of the world's least developed medical systems, with government funding consistently among the lowest of any country, even with recent increases under a post-junta semi-civilian government.

State health workers are technically in charge of outreach and aid groups are banned from conducting leprosy awareness campaigns or looking for new patients -- although they can treat people they find through dermatology clinics and during follow-up field trips.

The respected local aid group that organised the border expedition asked AFP not to give specific details of their work fearing that it could jeopardise future missions.

Saw Hsar Mu Lar's Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital, with its bright, simple wards, trained staff and plentiful supply of drugs, is a medical haven -- funded mainly by international donations.

Most of the patients AFP met were farmers or had turned to begging to make ends meet.

"We had no medicine at our village even though we had a clinic," said 40-year-old Mu Hai, who had travelled from western Rakhine state for treatment.

The hospital's matron, Ni Ni Thein, is worried. In 2011 they saw 58 new leprosy cases, but that rose to 62 in 2012 and 68 last year.

"Now cases are increasing... the complication rate is increasing," she said, adding that the age range for the disease had also appeared to have widened, with one four-year-old treated this year.

The fight to stop leprosy has been a major international success, with around 16 million people cured by multi-drug therapy (MDT) medicine in the last two decades.

But experts warn against complacency.

A patient drinks a beverage at the

 Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital

in Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2013

 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

Myanmar is one of 18 countries that together account for almost all new cases of the disease.

The number of new cases it finds annually is dwarfed by its populous neighbour India, where there were some 127,000 new patients identified in 2011 according to World Health Organisation figures.

But while India managed an over 50 percent reduction between 2004 and 2011, Myanmar struggled to reduce its new incidences by 18 percent.

The WHO's goodwill ambassador on leprosy, Yohei Sasakawa, said stagnation in Myanmar's new case numbers over several years could indicate authorities are not doing enough to root out the disease.

One problem is that the numbers affected seem small compared to other health challenges like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

"It is quite easy to be brought down the priority list," he told AFP during a recent mission to the country.

'He shall dwell alone'

Even if patients are cured, many around the world still fall victim to the stigma that clings to the disease, ending up living in segregated colonies.

Public vilification dates back over two thousand years.

The Bible says of leprosy sufferers: "he is unclean: he shall dwell alone".

A patient sits in a corridor at the

 Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital

in Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2013

(AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

Saw Roger was chased out of his village when he started to show signs of leprosy aged 18 in the 1950s.

"I lived only with the animals in the jungle and I was frightened. I used to go into my village under the moonlight and I took rice and fish paste before going back into the dark forest," the 76-year-old told AFP.

After two years sleeping in the woods, Roger was found by missionaries and taken to the Mawlamyaing hospital.

Roger, whose legs, left hand and eye have been ravaged by the disease, has found sanctuary there ever since.

Passing the time reading and leading the church choir, he said he has found happiness despite a lifetime of travails caused by the illness.

"I can continue to look forward," he added.

Ghana's amputee footballers strive for international glory

Yahoo – AFP, Chris Stein, 11 July 2014

Amputee footballers jostle for control of the ball during a practice match

on May 7 in Accra (AFP Photo)

Accra (AFP) - On a field scattered with rubbish, ripe with the smell of urine and criss-crossed by commuters and the occasional truck, a group of Ghanaian footballers practise drills, the early morning sun glinting off their metal crutches.

While footballers around the globe have their eyes on Brazil, Ghana's national amputee football team is gearing up to compete in a world cup of its own in Mexico later this year.

But standing between the Black Challenge side and victory in the 2014 Amputee Football World Cup are not just old foes such as Argentina and Liberia.

An amputee footballer kicks the ball

 during a practice on May 10 in

Accra (AFP Photo/Chris Stein)

The team's ability to attract support for their unique brand of football is also in the balance, and unless they can raise the money needed to fund the trip, they may not go at all.

That hasn't stopped them preparing.

"We don't have much time, so we have to train hard," said one of the team's coaches, Benjamin Armah, as he watched his veteran players trickle in for an early practice session on a warm May morning in the capital, Accra.

The Black Challenge started officially in 2007 -- the same year the team won the first Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football, said Theodore Viwotor, administrative secretary for the Ghana Amputee Football Association.

The team came in sixth in the 2012 World Cup held in Russia, after Argentina eliminated the Ghanaians in the preliminary round.

In last year's cup of nations in Nairobi, the team was placed third after being knocked out by Liberia in the semi-finals.

Black Challenge coaches will hold trials in Ghana's two largest cities in August, choosing a squad from new recruits and returning team members for the tournament in November.

Poles apart

The rules in amputee football are much the same as in regular soccer, albeit adapted to take into account what the World Amputee Football Federation calls its "abbreviated" players.

International matches are played with seven on each side for two 25 minute periods, there is no offside and kick-ins replace throw-ins.

On the pitch, the movements stand out.

Outfield players -- all of them missing either an entire single lower limb or part of one -- dash across the field on metal crutches, using them for support as they jostle for the ball and kick goals home.

People with one missing or malformed arm are enlisted as goalkeepers.

While the ranks of Angola and Sierra Leone's amputee football teams are made up of those who lost limbs in brutal conflict, most of Ghana's players were victims of accidents or illness.

"I knew I could still play because I was already a footballer," said Mubarak Ademu, a striker who lost his leg in a car accident when he was aged six.

The Black Challenge's returning players say they are less worried about their fitness to compete than they are about paying their way to the world cup.

The team's practice pitch is a patch of dirt near Accra's shoreline that doubles as a car park, a garbage dump and an open-air toilet for a nearby shantytown.

Just down the street from the amputees' lot, Ghana's national football team, the Black Stars, practise in a monolithic stadium.

The Black Stars came home from Brazil early after failing to advance from the so-called "Group of Death" in the qualifying round, which included Germany, United States and Portugal.

The team's performance was a disappointment to many Ghanaians, as was the drama that occurred behind the scenes in the team's camp.

The players demanded that $3 million (2.2 million euros) in appearance fees be flown to them in Brazil on a charter flight in advance of what ended up being their final game against Portugal.

This ultimatum grated on many in Ghana, which is fighting the fallout from a depreciating currency, a yawning deficit due to falling commodities prices such as gold, plus slower-than-expected growth in its nascent oil sector.

Ghana's John Boye (C) reacts to scoring an own goal with Jonathan Mensah (R)

 during the match between Portugal and Ghana in Brasilia on June 26, 2014

(AFP Photo/Gabriel Bouys)

"It's at times very painful that virtually everything is pushed to the Black Stars," Viwotor said. "Government should appreciate that every sport that represents the nation should be given attention."

Money troubles

Going to Mexico will cost about $200,000, Viwotor said. So far, only $22,500 has been raised, from private sponsors.

Without the team, Viwotor wonders what would become of the club's players.

Local governments in Ghana are required to give part of their budget to support people with disabilities.

But the bureaucracy required to access the money is daunting. At traffic lights in Accra, legless men on skateboards appear at the windows of waiting drivers, asking for spare change.

"Many of these people would probably be beggars or have lost hope in life," Viwotor said. "When you watch a one-legged person playing, it gives a sort of hope."

Days after their early morning practice, the Black Challenge arrived at a sports complex in an upscale suburb of Accra, where they split into two squads and played against each other.

Players with cerebral palsy joined in, showing little advantage over the crutch-wielding footballers, despite having use of both of their legs.

Frank Wilson, a non-disabled footballer who watched the Black Challenge play from the side-lines, was impressed by the rigours of the adapted game.

"They put in a lot of effort to play their game," he said.

Hundreds of Ghanaian football fans travelled to Brazil 

to follow their team in the World Cup

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