Falls Church Knitting Group Makes Bandages for Leprosy Sufferers in Vietnam

Every week after Monday morning Mass, a half-dozen women get together in an empty classroom at St. Philip Catholic Church in Falls Church to knit.

There are no balls of hand-dyed wool in pastel colors, no half-made baby's booties. These women turn narrow, austere threads into identical strips of white, cream and tan. The products of their labor will not swaddle chilly necks or warm cold feet; instead, they will protect wounds thousands of miles away in the jungles of Vietnam.

The women are among hundreds across the country who make bandages by hand for sufferers of Hansen's disease, more commonly referred to as leprosy. The dreaded and once-incurable disease has been virtually eradicated from the developed world but persists in pockets of Asia, Africa and South America. According to the World Health Organization, more than 200,000 people contracted the illness last year.

For years, the women at St. Philip had assembled weekly to make rosaries, the strings of beads Catholics use for prayer. They made pearly white ones for small children and sturdy black ones threaded with parachute cord for members of the military.

Last year, the church's pastor returned from a trip to Vietnam with disturbing stories of people who developed open sores and lost fingers and toes after contracting a scourge that some didn't know still existed. He told them the afflicted people were subsisting in an isolated settlement with the help of nuns who live nearby.

The churchwomen, some of whom had never traveled overseas, said they were moved and heartbroken by the plight of people a world away, suffering from an illness that was straight out of the Bible. Later, they learned of an organization called the Bandage Brigade, which sends handmade bandages to leprosy patients in Vietnam.

"We thought, 'Hey, we can do that,' " said Maureen Walsh, one of the St. Philip bandage makers. "That's something we know how to do."

The World Health Organization has been on a mission to eradicate the bacterial illness, which affects the skin and nerves and can cause numbness, paralysis and other damage to the hands and feet. Although leprosy is contagious, it is not spread easily and can be cured with drugs.

But the organization's efforts have been hampered by substandard health care in remote places, and the disease's stigma, which still leads to the creation of settlements, or leper colonies, even for victims who are cured. And because many are disabled, their ability to work is limited.

"There's a cure for this disease, but because these people live up in the jungle and the mountains, and because they are ostracized just like in biblical times, they have to live off of charity. It's terrible," said Carol Vincent, another bandage maker. "We were shocked. We had no idea."

Not just any bandages will do, Walsh said. They must be made of mercerized cotton, which is treated to strengthen the fibers so they can withstand repeated use after being boiled and sterilized. They must be four feet long and three to four inches wide, so they can be used to dress sores as well as be wrapped around wounded hands and feet.

They must be washed in very hot water, thoroughly dried, carefully rolled and sealed into plastic sandwich bags before they are ready to ship.

And it is important that they be knitted or crocheted by hand, said Linda Stocker, a retired banker and wife of a Vietnam War veteran who founded the Bandage Brigade from her home north of Vancouver, Wash. Stocker's group, which is not religious but has inspired church groups across the country, has sent an estimated 3,500 bandages to Vietnam since 2007.

Handmade bandages are stronger than gauze and lighter than Ace bandages, she said, and there are other benefits.

"What I'm seeing as I talk to the people in the Bandage Brigade -- and it's true of giving in general -- is that there's therapy on both sides," she said. "People have told me it helped them quit smoking, helped them diet, help them get over the death of their husbands. . . . People are saying this is filling their idle hours and makes them feel like they're doing something meaningful."