After a life spent on the peninsula, she recently moved to a care home in Honolulu, to accompany her husband after his health deteriorated. As she looks back on her decades at Kalaupapa she both cries and smiles at life on the settlement.
Life in a small town. Today, Kalaupapa is a national park, with 16 former patients remaining registered as residents. These days, the town consists not only of former leprosy patients but also 40 state employees and up to 60 national park staff. It has numerous churches, a movie hall, sports facilities, deer for hunting and waters to fish in.
Built in , and originally a Calvinist Church at the Kalaupapa settlement, this building is now a ranger station. But life is still isolated. The rough seas surrounding Kalaupapa provide just one window of time per year in which a barge can pull in with goods and gasoline, although cargo planes regularly bring fresh produce.
The patients have long been cured of leprosy but today suffer from deformities caused by the disease, as well as suffering from the usual perils of age.
Leprosy is a chronic infection spread from person to person causing damage to the skin and peripheral nerves in those infected. This damage leads commonly to deformities caused by injuries from people losing feeling in parts of their body, such as their feet and hands. Common deformities include dragged feet, claw hands and blindness through limp eyelids.
Brede lost the use of most fingers on her hands after various accidents caused damage without her knowing. She also has no feeling in her feet. Leprosy persists. Kalaupapa is not the only leprosy settlement -- also known as leprosarium -- to have existed in the United States. Before a treatment was found in , patients in the U. The Carville hospital is now long closed, but as at Kalaupapa, a few elderly patients chose to stay on. Today, leprosy persists around the world and infections continue to spread in certain populations.
In the United States, to people continue to be infected with leprosy each year. National Hansen's Disease Program. In the United States, the majority of infections occur through human transmission but recently a few cases have been suspected to have occurred through contact with armadillos , which are capable of carrying the infection. New infections from human transmission stem from the situation more globally.
More than , new infections were reported globally in , with many more suspected to be undiagnosed. It was the global prevalence of leprosy that spread the disease to Hawaii in the 19th century, when many migrated to the island to work the land. As Hawaiians hadn't been previously exposed to the disease, their lack of any protective immunity helped the infection thrive upon its arrival.
The spread of leprosy is still not fully understood but the bacteria behind it is suspected to transmit when people are in close contact. Symptoms of leprosy can take between five and 20 years to develop and whilst the disease can be cured, it's crucial to catch people before deformities develop -- and before they infect others.
The spread of an eliminated disease. Leprosy was officially eliminated globally in as a result of a World Health Organization WHO program, but the aim was to stop the disease being a public health problem -- not to remove it completely. In addition to patients, there are usually anywhere from 80 to people in the settlement during the weekdays. Most work for the Park Service and the state, as well as others, including the postmistress, Catholic priests, nuns, airport workers, Department of Transportation workers, and long-term volunteers and interns.
These workers return to their families on topside Molokai on weekends, when the number of people on Kalaupapa would drop to approximately 35 to But since the pandemic hit last year, these numbers are drastically lower. Pescaia notes that currently, less than half of the Park Service staff is in service working in the park. The number of state workers on Kalaupapa was also cut in half, although some are returning, slowly.
There is also a mandatory day quarantine for anyone coming into the settlement; essential workers have a modified quarantine that allows them to work, but they must return home as soon as their shift ends. As time went by, the community became smaller. Today, ruins of buildings from the colony can still be seen in Kalaupapa. Kalaupapa National Historical Park also stopped allowing visitors to enter last year after the pandemic hit.
Residents have not been able to see their families and have only had the company of one another and workers for over a year. But the staff cuts and strict no-visitors policy have been effective in keeping the Kalaupapa patients safe. However, the lack of visitors, lack of family time, and the inability to leave the peninsula in over a year have taken their toll.
They should be enjoying laughter and the company of their families, and not feeling so lonely. As Jules Suzdaltsev in today's Seeker Daily report, it's mostly due to an enduring cultural stigma that has proven much harder to eradicate than the disease itself. Leprosy is an infectious disease that causes skin lesions and numbness in the extremities, although contrary to popular belief, it does not cause limbs to rot and fall off.
It's actually secondary infections that cause deformities or injuries that require amputation. Since ancient times, those who suffer from leprosy have been officially ostracized and legally quarantined. These leper colonies have endured, even into the 21st century, despite the fact that the World Health Organization declared leprosy officially "eliminated" as a public health problem in In many cases, leprosy victims continue to isolate themselves due to traditional ostracism in their communities.
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