Recovered lepers from the Yi ethnic minority wait for a check-up after undergoing an eye surgery at Xining village, 500 km (311 miles) south of Chengdu, capital of China's south-central Sichuan province, October 22, 2006. Although China stopped institutionalizing leprosy sufferers after the 1980s, there are still hundreds of leprosy villages in the country today. They are home to about 200,000 recovered lepers and their descendents, who have little or no hope of ever rejoining society because of strong stigma attached to the disease. Picture taken October 22, 2006. To match feature HEALTH-LEPROSY
REUTERS/BOBBY YIP