Kalaupapa
Hansen's Disease
Kalaupapa. Kalawao. The very names were once synonymous with separation, isolation and even death. Here is where thousands of Hansen's disease (leprosy) patients were forcibly exiled out of ignorance and fear of a chronic, infectious disease with no known cure.
It is not known exactly when leprosy arrived in the Hawaiian islands, but the disease was present at least as early as 1830. In the 1860s the kingdom of Hawai`i took steps it believed would halt further spread of the disease. The legislative assembly passed a law in 1865, approved by King Kamehameha V, to set apart land for the isolation and seclusion of persons thought contagious. People suspected of leprosy were condemned to a life to virtual imprisonment on the windward side of Moloka`i. What began on January 6, 1866, when the first group of patients were left at Kalawao, did not end until 1969 with the abandonment of the isolation policy at Kalaupapa.
Hansen's disease is caused by a germ, Mycobacterium leprae, which usually involves the nerves, skin and eyes. Norwegian scientist Gerhard Armauer Hansen discovered the leprosy bacillus in 1873. Leprosy is transmitted by direct, person-to-person contact, usually repetitive, over a prolonged period of time. This disease is one of the least contagious of all communicable diseases. Since the mid-1940s sulfone antibiotics have been used to treat Hansen's disease. With this treatment, even the most contagious patient becomes non-infectious. All new cases are treated on an outpatient basis.
