After huge gains by 2005, efforts to wipe the disease out in India, which has most of the world’s cases, stalled. But the new campaign is seen as a political move without resources

As a teenager, Tanu Bai would burn her hands while cooking but feel no pain. “I couldn’t feel anything. My hands and feet were numb,” she says. “I’d burn them but wouldn’t be able to tell.” Her arms would sometimes become horribly swollen, and then there were the white spots dotting her body.

Without treatment, the muscles and bones in her fingers slowly disintegrated and were reabsorbed into her body, reducing her hands to stubs. Orphaned at 10, she had no family to take care of her.