In the early 1900s, the Japanese government (occupying Korea) decided to confine leprosy patients in an island called Sorokdo. It's only 5 minutes by boat to the mainland of South Korea but patients for decades were not allowed to leave the island. Today, those remaining choose to stay on the island. Initially, the island used the island as a detention center to use patients for labor to produce food and Japanese war material. During it's peek, there were over 6,000 persons with leprosy residing on the island. Many died do to forced labor, illness and famine after the Korean war. Now there are about 600 patients and 100 staff members who live and work on the island, most at the Sorok National Hospital. These patients are not longer contagious, but still suffer the scars of their once active disease. The majority of the patients are over the age of 75 and have never left the island in over 50 years. Leprosy (aka Hansen Disease) is curable today with modern medicine and these remaining people are the last remaining in our society.
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