Patients help other patients: Qualitative study on a longstanding community cooperative to tackle leprosy in India.

Background: Although leprosy is portrayed as a disappearing disease, leprosy affected persons in India are still suffering massively. Even further, nearly 60% of the world's newly detected cases are appearing from India alone. The problem has exacerbated due to the drastic decrease of global funding after India's official declaration of 'elimination', which did not foster the actual pain of patients beyond prevalence.