Stigmatization of persons with leprosy causes the emotional harm of social, economic and spiritual deprivation. Individual counselling has benefits in addressing these psychosocial problems but is a slow process and effects few people at any one time. Our experience of group counselling of stigmatized persons achieved the following: addressing common issues to more than one person at a time, encouraging the unity of sufferers, developing compassion for others, understanding the common effects of stigmatization, and beginning to overcome its harmful effects. A man who is isolated and alone can be regarded as a sort of discarded person. He is a man cast out of society, and that type of man, in the old days, would have been killed. Let me say this-and I say it very seriously: there is nothing worse than being isolated. Dinizulu, King of the Zulus, c. 1910 Humans are holistic beings with intricately intertwined parts. Healing an illness such as leprosy has multiple facets, as we look to cure the disease and heal the fear and despair that its diagnosis and stigma engenders. Emotional pain is inflicted upon its sufferers as they are avoided, rejected, and treated as if they were animals. Their own confusion and self-doubts bring on suicidal thoughts and depression. Spiritual pain is endured as they are forbidden to enter places of worship due to the prevailing belief that the disease's aetiology is their 'sinful ' state. Economic pain ensues due to reduced ability to work from nerve damage, rejection by their employers or being put out by their family. Health education about the disease, drug treatment and self-care are important factual and objective reason-orientated aspects of the healing process. However, these alone will not heal the deep-seated wounds that years of rejection have inflicted upon the person's emotions and spirit. To heal these deeper wounds people need healing of their personhood or self-image. 1 'Many tears have been shed. Those they have loved have turned against them. Now the way back seems hard and hazardous, and the heart shrinks from the prospect of yet another rebuff at the end of the effort.' 2

ObjectivesThis study aims to determine prevalence of gender-based violence among pregnant women attending an antenatal care (ANC) clinic.MethodsBetween September 2014 and December 2014, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 202 pregnant women attending the antenatal ward of the Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) of Syangja district, Nepal. The data were collected using semistructure questionnaires with face-to-face interviews. SPSS software (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA) was used for analysis the data.ResultsThe prevalence rate of gender-based violence was found to be 91.1% (184). Most of the respondents (87%) faced economic violence followed by psychological (53.8%), sexual (41.8%), and physical (4.3%) violence. Women experienced: (1) psychological violence with most complaining of angry looks followed by jealousy or anger while talking with other men, insults using abusive language and neglect; (2) economic violence with most complaining of financial hardship, denial of basic needs and an insistence on knowing where respondents were and restricting them to parents' home or friends/relatives' houses (jealousy); (3) physical violence by slapping, pushing, shaking, or throwing something at her, twisting arm or pulling hair, and punching and kicking; and (4) sexual violence by physically forcing her to have sexual intercourse without consent, and hurting or causing injury to private parts. Most (100%) of the perpetrators were found to be husbands and mothers-in-law (10.7%) who violated them rarely.ConclusionThe prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) among pregnant women attending the ANC clinic was greater in the Syangja district of Nepal. Women's empowerment, economic autonomy, sensitization, informal or formal training regarding GBV for men and women, and the need for large-scale population-based surveys are the major recommendations of this study.

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COVID-19, which emerged as a new and unknown disease in December of 2019, has transformed into a full-blown pandemic. It has affected all spheres of life, however, has claimed more lives of immune-compromised. Many opportunistic infections are being reported. We present a case of pyemotes species in sputum sample of a COVID-19 patient