'The disease enslaved me': living with leprosy in Ghana – in pictures

Leprosy, a disease written about since biblical times, remains endemic in many poorer parts of the world. More than 50 people are diagnosed each day, with numerous others remaining undiagnosed because of stigma, fear or lack of medical access. Matilda Temperley, the 2016 Royal Photographic Society/Joan Wakelin bursary winner, has worked on a project looking at leprosy in Ghana

  • The Joan Wakelin bursary offers photographers £2,000 and the chance to see their work in the Guardian. It is jointly administered by the Guardian and the Royal Photographic Society. The 2017 bursary is open for entries
  • Please visit: http://rps.org/competitions/joan-wakelin for details on applying

Matilda Temperley/the Guardian/RPS

Main image: Ekua Ketsewa, 76, with a family member in her new room in the village where she was born. Ketsewa decided to move after after living in a leprosy camp for 41 years Photograph: Matilda Temperley/the Guardian/RPS

  • Ekua Ketsewa, 76

    Ketsewa was diagnosed with the disease aged 30 and lived in a leprosy camp for 41 years. This picture was taken the morning before she moved back to the village where she was born. She said: ‘A few years ago stigma and discrimination disappeared and a lot of people went back to their families’
    Ekua Ketsewa, 76

  • Ketsewa takes a look back at Ankaful leprosy camp as she is driven to her new home
    Ekua Ketsewa leaving Ankaful

  • Ketsewa arrives in the village of Assin Bosomadwe. She cited the end of stigma as a reason for moving closer to her family
    Ketsewa arrives in the village of Assin Bosomadwe

  • Getting acquainted with her relatives in the village
    Getting acquainted with her relatives in the village

  • Meeting her great-grandchildren
    Meeting her great-grandchildren

  • Kofi Nyarko, 45

    Pictured at home in Ankaful, Cape Coast, Nyarko is a teacher who has spent his life fighting the social stigma surrounding leprosy. He said: ‘To be able to reduce stigma we went door to door, village to village, chief to chief. When people understood [it’s] curable, treatment is free and it is not easy to catch, the stigma stopped.’
    Kofi Nyarko, 45, at home in Ankaful, Cape Coast, Ghana

  • Nyarko outside the ward at Ankaful leprosy hospital, where he was treated after being infected as a child. From the age of 17 he lived in a leprosy camp
    Kofi Nyarko outside Ankaful leprosy hospital

  • The car used by Nyarko and his team to take people back to their villages
    The car used by Nyarko and his team to take people back to their villages

  • Charles Aboagye, 46

    Aboagye has been cured of leprosy but returns to Ankaful hospital for treatment on the ulcers he gets as a result of his leprosy going untreated for so long
    Charles Aboagye, 46

  • James Dadzie, 53

    Dadzie, a farmer, is also moving back to the village of his birth, after living in Eyindakrom leprosy camp for 39 years. ‘I nearly lost contact with my family. I think the disease enslaved me and when you are captured there is always a chance you will become free. Today I am free again.’
    James Dadzie, 53

  • The village of Gomaa Dunkwao, where Dadzie was born
    Gomaa Dunkwao

  • Kwesi Amoah, 46

    Amoah is newly diagnosed, but because he has caught the disease early he will be treated and is unlikely to suffer any long-term effects
    Kwesi Amoah, 46

  • Samuel Otoo, 50

    Otoo lives with his family but is temporarily in Ankaful hospital being treated for an ulcer on his foot, which is a complication of having had leprosy in the past
    Samuel Otoo
Topics