Pic story: villagers battle disease, poverty in Kuihua Village, SW China

Feng Wancai (R) talks with his daughter on the phone in Kuihua Village of Ganluo County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Jan. 25, 2019. Feng Wancai, 91, moved to an isolated area in the remote Daliang Mountain in Sichuan after his wife Yang Wenying was diagnosed with leprosy in 1958, only one year after they got married. The place was recognized as a "leprosy village", as leprosy patients gathered here to receive treatment. Years later, after most of the leprosy patients had been cured, the isolated land was renamed Kuihua Village, and geared up to battle poverty with targeted poverty alleviation measures unveiled. The couple have been living in the village for over 60 years without any other member of their big family's later generations contracted to the disease. Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease that can cause nerve damage, leading to muscle weakness and atrophying, and permanent disability. The disease is preventable, non-inheritable and with proper treatment, curable. (Xinhua/Jiang Hongjing)