Leper colonies are now more sensitively termed “communities of people affected by leprosy” but the ­underlying theme is the same; those so affected are despised and segregated. One girl we came across on our seven-day visit to Ethiopia last month to see the work of the Leprosy Mission walks seven kilometres to school each day so that nobody knows she lives in a leprosy-affected family. A father told us that he lied to his children about the reason for his absent fingers – they believe he lost them in an accident.It is because there is both a severe stigma and a lamentable ignorance about the early signs of the disease that too many present too late for treatment and the inevitable disabilities result: amputated limbs, permanently deformed hands and feet, blindness. Y