Colombo is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, the Colombo metropolitan area has a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 in the Municipality. It is the financial centre of the island and a tourist destination. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to the Greater Colombo area which includes Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the legislative capital of Sri Lanka, and Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia. Colombo is often referred to as the capital since Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is itself within the urban/suburban area of Colombo. It is also the administrative capital of the Western Province and the district capital of Colombo District. Colombo is a busy and vibrant city with a mixture of modern life, colonial buildings and monuments.
Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai or Saint Damien De Veuster, born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious institute. He was recognized for his ministry, which he led from 1873 until his death in 1889, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to people with leprosy, who lived in government-mandated medical quarantine in a settlement on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokaʻi.
A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy.
M. leprae, the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Africa through the Middle East, Europe, and Asia by the 5th century before reaching the rest of the world more recently. Historically, leprosy was believed to be extremely contagious and divinely ordained, leading to enormous stigma against its sufferers. Other severe skin diseases were frequently conflated with leprosy and all such sufferers were kept away from the general public, although some religious orders provided medical care and treatment. Recent research has shown M. leprae has maintained a similarly virulent genome over at least the last thousand years, leaving it unclear which precise factors led to leprosy's near elimination in Europe by 1700. A growing number of cases following the first wave of European colonization, however, led to increased attention towards leprosy during the New Imperialism of the late 19th century. Following G.A. Hansen's discovery of the role of M. leprae in the disease, the First International Leprosy Conference held in Berlin in 1897 renewed interest and investment in the isolation of lepers throughout the European colonial empires. Although Western countries now generally treat cases of leprosy individually on an outpatient basis, traditional isolated colonies continue to exist in India, China, and some other countries.
Galle is a major city in Sri Lanka, situated on the southwestern tip, 119 km (74 mi) from Colombo. Galle is the provincial capital and largest city of Southern Province, Sri Lanka and is the capital of Galle District.
Tompkinsville is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City. Named for Daniel D. Tompkins, sixth Vice President of the United States (1817–1825), the neighborhood sits on the island's eastern shore, along the waterfront facing Upper New York Bay, between St. George on the north and Stapleton on the south; however, it is considered part of the North Shore by the island's residents.
Marianne Cope, OSF, was a German-born American religious sister who was a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York, and founding leader of its St. Joseph's Hospital in the city, among the first of 50 general hospitals in the country. Known also for her charitable works, in 1883 she relocated with six other sisters to Hawaiʻi to care for persons suffering leprosy on the island of Molokaʻi and aid in developing the medical infrastructure in Hawaiʻi. Despite direct contact with the patients over many years, Cope did not contract the disease.
The Eastern University Sri Lanka is a public university in Vantharumoolai, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. It was established on 1 October 1986. The university was preceded by the Batticaloa University College established on 1 August 1981 which was started in the buildings of the Vantharumoolai Madya Maha Vidyalayam.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a cabinet ministry of the Government of Sri Lanka responsible for conducting and managing Sri Lanka's foreign relations through oversight of its missions abroad via the Sri Lanka Overseas Service, as well as drafting and general implementation of the nation's foreign policy.
Kopay is a Sri Lankan town about 4 km from the city of Jaffna along Point Pedro road. An agricultural town consisting mainly of vegetable farms, paddy fields and coconut gardens. The suburb Kopay has several scholars because of very strong schooling system. Arumuka Navalar established the school managed by Suwaminathan is famous for this. Arrival of Church Missionary Society (CMS) strengthened the educational system. Kopay Christian College is one of the oldest schools in Jaffna with 150 years of service remain unbeaten in producing quality scholars.
Sri Lanka has a free and universal health care system. It scores higher than the regional average in healthcare having a high Life expectancy and a lower maternal and infant death rate than its neighbors. It is known for having one of the world's earliest known healthcare systems and has its own indigenous medicine system.
Leprosy stigma is a type of social stigma, a strong negative feeling towards a person with leprosy relating to their moral status in society. It is also referred to as leprosy-related stigma, leprostigma, and stigma of leprosy. Since ancient times, leprosy instilled the practice of fear and avoidance in many societies because of the associated physical disfigurement and lack of understanding behind its cause. Because of the historical trauma the word "leprosy" invokes, the disease is now referred to as Hansen's disease, named after Gerhard Armauer Hansen who discovered Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterial agent that causes Hansen's disease. Those who have suffered from Hansen's disease describe the impact of social stigma as far worse than the physical manifestations despite it being only mildly contagious and pharmacologically curable. This sentiment is echoed by Weis and Ramakrishna, who noted that "the impact of the meaning of the disease may be a greater source of suffering than symptoms of the disease".
Issues and practices related to childbirth in Sri Lanka are influenced by the sociocultural composition, political history and violence within the country.
The history of leprosy was traced to its origins by an international team of 22 geneticists using comparative genomics of the worldwide distribution of Mycobacterium leprae. Monot et al. (2005) determined that leprosy originated in East Africa or the Near East and traveled with humans along their migration routes, including those of trade in goods and slaves. The four strains of M. leprae are based in specific geographic regions where each predominantly occurs:
Karapitiya Teaching Hospital located in Karapitiya, Galle is the largest Tertiary care centre in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. It was established in 1982 and is the main training facility for the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna. The hospital consists of 2,066 beds, 54 wards and several other units. It is the third largest tertiary care hospital in the country. Karapitiya Hospital meets the health needs of people in Southern Province and also provides services to the people of the surrounding areas. In 2024, it was proposed to be renamed as Galle National Hospital.
The National Hospital of Sri Lanka is a government hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Founded in 1864 as the General Hospital, it is the leading hospital in Sri Lanka and is controlled by the central government. The hospital has 18 intensive care units and 21 operating theaters and 3,404 beds. It employs 7,500 staff of which 1,500 are doctors. The hospital carries out 5,000 major and minor surgeries each month and treats over two million out patients a year. Situated on a 36-acre site, it includes the Dental Institute, Maligawatte Kidney Hospital, Nurse's Training School, Post Basic Nurse's Training School, School of Eco Cardiograph, School of Physiotherapy, School of Radiography and the University of Colombo's Faculty of Medicine.
The Gampaha Wickramarachchi University of Indigenous Medicine, is a public university located in Yakkala, Sri Lanka. It was established by Ayurveda Cakrawarti Pandit G.P. Wickramarachchi in 1928 as the Gampaha Sidayurveda Vidyalaya and in 1982 it was incorporated as Gampaha Wickramarachchi Ayurveda Vidyalaya under the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine.
The Election Commission of Sri Lanka is the constitutional authority responsible for administering and overseeing all elections in Sri Lanka, including the Presidential, Parliamentary, Provincial and Local Authority elections. Sri Lanka has had universal adult suffrage since 1931, becoming the first Crown colony to enfranchise all adult citizens, 3 years after the United Kingdom itself; the country is the oldest democracy in Asia.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus. The first case of the virus in Sri Lanka was confirmed on 27 January 2020, after a 44-year-old Chinese woman from Hubei, China, was admitted to the Infectious Disease Hospital in Angoda, Sri Lanka. As of 15 December 2022, a total of 671,776 COVID-19 cases had been recorded in the country, 654,919 patients had recovered from the disease, and 16,814 patients had died.
The National Cancer Institute is a government hospital in Maharagama, Sri Lanka. Which is under the control of Department of Health, provides all its services free of charge. As of February 2020 Sri Lanka has more than 50,000 cancer patients, with 14,000 annual deaths due to cancer.
Kandakadu Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre previously known as the Kandakadu Drug Rehabilitation Centre is a rehabilitation center located in the Welikanda, Polonnaruwa District, North Central Province in Sri Lanka. It is currently operated by the Bureau of the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation under the Ministry of Justice. The rehabilitation centre is currently used to treat drug addicts and COVID-19 patients along with Senapura Rehabilitation Center. The centre was transformed into a Drug Rehabilitation Centre in 2014 to treat drug addicted persons by giving counselling, vocational education and training.
