After two years I decided to return to the country of ‚Black Hats‘. Karakalpakstan is an autonomous Republic of Uzbekistan, which has its own Council of Ministers, its own language and even its own flag.
Currently there are 2 million in habitants. Dr. Atajan Khamrajev, Vice President of the Board of Governors of Karakalpakstan, has been our contact person for 14 years.
ICompared to the other 15 countries of the former Soviet Union, Karakalpakstan has the highest prevalence of Leprosy, so that my most important tasks were
- control check-ups of cured cases
- control check-ups of their contact persons
- • lectures and presentations about the current state of leprosy for medical doctors and students
To fulfil this task in the best possible way, I had organized for an epidemiological expedition to four endemic areas in Karakalpakstan and Uzbekistan (prevalence of Leprosy from generation to generation).
I also invited the Russian leprologists, W. Tsemba, who currently works at the Leprosy Centre ‘Zielona Dubrawa’ near Moscow and who is regarded as one of the best leprologists in Russia, to take part. Being supported by local physicians we moved along hundreds of kilometres in these areas. The aim was to find new cases of Leprosy and thus to interrupt the chain of infection.
I was devastated when during the examinations I realized that some of these people did not even have underwear. The physician in charge explained, ‘You cannot hide poverty!’ So we distributed underwear during the examinations.
We also found five new cases and five people who were sent to the leprosy clinic for further examination.