This book may offer a cautionary tale in the age of Covid19. The narratives we shape around disease in society are so often about politics and the competing versions of leprosy eradications story are no exception. In one telling the extrabudgetary funding for antileprosy work came with unwarranted interference in the WHO programme resulting in an overhasty acrimonious and ultimately unsuccessful elimination campaign. In another interpretation a great work of twentiethcentury disease control