(Reprinted from an article in Leprosy Review by courtesy of Duncan Murray and Prof Terence Ryan)

Dressings must be changed regularly to maintain their effectiveness. They should remain clean in order to prevent further infection, create a breathable environment, absorb exudate, and protect from mechanical damage. Bandages, similarly, do not indefinitely maintain their properties, whether used to hold dressings in place or for compression in limb oedema.

Solution
In areas where dressings and bandages can be diffi cult to obtain, providing a cheap and available source could alleviate some of the problems with over-use of old dressings. In India we found that a leprosy community had succeeded in manufacturing bandages from recycled picked cotton.

In certain medical communities, with the available equipment, it appears to be possible to alleviate the cost of dressings by weaving their own. This is a potential solution for groups of patients who are re-using dressings because they cannot afford new ones.

Prof. Ryan with the finished material