Japan's 'leprosy island': Nagashima patients were confined for decades after being cured

In the 1930s, Japan began forcibly confining leprosy patients to sanatoriums, including on the island of Nagashima. Even after effective treatments emerged in the late 1940s, the government continued mandatory confinement of patients who had in fact been cured for decades. Forced isolation was only ended in 1996, making it one of the longest-running public health abuses in modern Japanese history.