"Because there's a lot of stigma people don't get treatment and keep using their hands and feet. People continue to farm, walk for days on end and cook. Lots of people lose the tips of fingers and toes."
Leprosy is a chronic bacterial infection caused by Mycobacterium leprae and can result in rampant nerve damage. The form the disease takes depends on the person's immune response to the infection. As patients lose feeling in body parts, they become desensitised to injury and can damage themselves further, on top of the disfiguring sores that characterise the disease.
Although not highly infectious, it is transmitted via droplets from the nose and mouth, during close and frequent contact with untreated cases.
Ms Thompson, who travelled as part of Leprosy Mission New Zealand, said most of the work being done by Anandaban Hospital where she interned was around spreading awareness the illness was entirely curable if caught in time. Ninety per cent of the hospital's patients were infected with leprosy.
She sat in on "incredible" rehabilitative surgeries, where tendons were moved around the body to reinstate movement.
"We saw a man with a clawed hand so the surgeon moved a tendon from middle finger to his thumb.
"Another man was going blind because he was unable to blink. They took a tendon from his arm and connected it to his eye and his chewing muscles, so when he chewed he was able to blink."
Since returning Ms Thompson has been involved in a quest to raise $25,000 for a new generator for Anandaban.
Go to givealittle.co.nz and search "Leprosy Mission" to donate.