WORLDWIDE, one new person every 40 seconds is diagnosed with leprosy — a fact Okehampton photographer Conrad de Courcy knows only too well.

Conrad has just returned from India where he has been working with charity LEPRA and BBC presenter Valerie Singleton.

He spent a week in Hyderabad with the veteran Blue Peter presenter to shoot the trip for national and regional UK media and his pictures will feature in Hello! magazine this week.

But far from the kudos of seeing your work in glossy publications, Conrad is far more interested in raising the profile of the charity which saves lives and educates people about a disease which, although devastating, is totally curable.

The photographer's association with LEPRA began in 1997 when he took some shots for the charity in the second poorest region of India, the north eastern state of Orissi where leprosy is most common.

Having spent the first two years of his life in India, where his father was a tea-planter, Conrad makes frequent visits back to his birthplace and his love of India and desire to help LEPRA left him in no doubt to take on the job — for free — when it was offered to him.

'I had an exhibition in support of various charities, including LEPRA, a few years ago, which raised a good bit of money, and I saw this as another opportunity to help,' he said. 'I basically had two briefs to supply Hello! with what they wanted and LEPRA — it was pretty hectic and pressured but I am pleased with the results.'

Conrad describes India as an extraordinary place full of contradiction and inequality — 'a crazy, bustling, frenetic place' but for him, compulsive.

'I have hundreds of shots of India — it dominates my work almost to the point of obsession,' he said. 'I have not shot a black and white film for years because India is such a colourful place.'

Much of the work with Valerie Singleton focused on the Blue Peter Research Centre in Hyderabad, India's second most polluted city, which was set up in 1986 after a national fundraising appeal.

Conrad also had to work alongside a World Television film crew who were making a documentary about leprosy awareness.

'Working in India at anything is challenging for a start,' he said. 'We arrived in the back streets near to where the project was going on and around 60 children immediately surrounded us all with pens looking for autographs.

'Whilst it is great and I loved being in that situation, we had a job to do.'

He said the amazing thing about children who had leprosy was that they were always happy and smiling and you would never know they had a problem in the world.

'You look at them sometimes and wonder what on earth is going to happen to them — they live in such poverty — but we can only do our little bit I suppose.'

India accounts for threequarters of the world's leprosy cases and Conrad said one of the main problems was detecting it, especially in women. The nature of their culture is such that they do not undress and a male doctor would not be allowed to do an examination.

Part of the money LEPRA receives — it costs £21 to save a life — is used on educating the population about what symptoms to look for and getting them to believe the disease is not the result of some sort of curse.

'There is such a stigma attached to leprosy,' added Conrad. 'One of my favourite pictures is a portrait of an 11-year-old girl who was coming to the research centre for treatment. She is wearing a yellow dress and looks so good — you would never know she was ill.'

Conrad's photographs also show the other end of the spectrum where parts of sufferers' bodies are so badly deformed they are no longer recognisable.

'I took a shot of a grandmother and grand-daughter who had ulcers the size of eggs on the bottom of their feet,' he said. 'They could walk on razor blades or fire and not feel anything, and that is the danger.'

The photographer, who says his latest job was by far his biggest yet, enjoyed working with Valerie Singleton, whom he has met since to discuss the photographs — he shot more than 400 in total.

'I cannot believe it was her first time in India because she knew what was going on and had done her research,' he said. 'I took lots of shots of her looking into microscopes and observing treatments and drug-taking.

'One of the incidents I particularly remember was a father coming into the centre with his one-year-old child — when he did not test positive for leprosy it was good news but then we found out he had HIV instead. It's a desperate situation and LEPRA is working to prevent HIV and TB which is also a big problem in India.'

Although not as medically qualified as doctors and nurses in Britain, Conrad said he was amazed at the skill of the medical workers who could take a skin sample from underneath the skin with a scalpel without any sign of blood.

'I am bowled over by the dedication of everybody who is working to fight disease in India, especially the Indians themselves,' he said. 'If I was more skilled I would like to do something more practical myself.'

When asked if he was returning to India, Conrad, who is currently working on a book about the country, replied: 'I am always returning to India and hopefully it will be permanent one day.'

l LEPRA, which was formerly known as the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association, was founded in 1924 and works in many countries, including Brazil, Malawi, Bangladesh, Nepal and China.

To make a donation write to LEPRA, Department ECN1, Fairfax House, Causton Road, Colchester, Essex, COI 1PU or contact 08451 212121.