Mina was studying at university when she first started losing strength in her hands. It got so bad, Mina ended up in a wheelchair, with no strength left to walk. Having to go through treatment whilst studying for university exams is hard, but it's even harder when your friends no longer speak to you after you tell them about your diagnosis.

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For the last 35 years, Pratima has been working as a community health volunteer, educating her community on good health practices, delivering vaccinations and health checks. She views her job with pride and she is well respected in her community but it was not always like this. When Pratima first started, people did not welcome her, they would shut the door in her face or hide in their homes when she came to deliver health checks.

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When we first visited Ritu at home her, she peered at us through a hole in the wall of her house, too shy to come out to meet the strangers who had turned up in her village. Ritu grew up in a community where men and women have set roles, where reputation is linked to how well each performances their roles. When disease strikes, it threatens to destroy their reputations.

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At 12 years old, Rina had never heard of leprosy when she was diagnosed with it. Diagnosis is a complicated process and the medical journey to a cure takes a long time. Rina was simply happy to take the medication without really knowing what the disease was about. Is it better to know or not know about the disease you have?

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13 year old Rhitik found a small cut on his big toe. He thought nothing of this, expecting it will heal soon. But 6 months later, the wound hadn't healed. Instead it had gotten bigger, an infection had set in and soon the infection had gone right down to the bone. His doctors had no idea what was happening.

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When her father passed away, Aarati's mum worked hard to keep Aarati and her brother at school but financial pressures mean that Aarati had to drop out of school to support the family. Now at 16 years old, Aarati has a chance to go back to school. She wants to pick up where she left off in Year 6 and even though she's older now, her determination has not left her and she still has big dreams.

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Born into a farming family, 40 year old Durga learnt how to farm the land and grow her own food. However, when she was 7 years old, she started to lose strength in her legs and small tumors started to grow all over her body.

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Down many bumpy dirt roads and fields of wheat, a long way from the nearest town, at just 20 years old, Rupa has started a successful small business, but life has never been easy. As a child, Rupa developed a condition that made her look different to other people. Her relatives told her that nobody would ever want to marry her.

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