ON THEIR OWN TWO FEET

Lymphatic filariasis, a much misunderstood and widespread tropical disease is finally coming under control thanks to the efforts of past victims of the illness who are spreading awareness in their communities

- BY Sonali Acharjee

Imagine waking up one day to excruciating pain in your leg and finding the limb has swollen to three times its size. There is no school textbook, family member or prayer that has ever prepared you for such a moment in your life. With no knowledge about what caused the unsightly swelling, you spend the next 40 years of your life searching for a cure, or for that matter relief of any kind. This was the life of Ram Sanehi since the age of 25 when he first contracted lymphatic filariasis (LF), a parasitic infection that causes severe limb swelling, pain, and long-term disability.

With no idea what was happening to him or what to do about it, Sanehi, now 65, spent years with a disfigured leg. The disability limited his business as a shop owner and he worried constantly about mounting financial bills for him and his two small children. At one point, desperation got the better of him. After visiting a series of herbalists, exorcists, quack doctors and vaidyas, Sanehi resorted to a barbaric ritual in the wild hope that it would heal his leg.

On the advice of a seer near his village of Kalyanpur in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, Sanehi would dig a three-foot pit every morning and fill it with cow dung and wood. After setting the pit alight, he would put his infected foot into the heat for hours. He performed the 'treatment' for six long months. The ritual only worsened his condition to the extent where he struggled to walk.

All that changed when Sanehi came across a patient support group for lymphatic filariasis through the local healthcare centre. There he was taught simple methods to manage his disability—a thorough medical-level washing of the affected leg and physiotherapy.