Spinalonga

Spinalonga is a small island in Greece that used to be a place where sick people with a disease called leprosy went to live. Leprosy is a sickness that affects a person's skin, nerves, and limbs. People used to be really scared of leprosy because they didn't know how it was spread and thought that it was contagious. So, they would send people who had leprosy to live on Spinalonga so that they wouldn't spread it to other people.

The people who lived on Spinalonga had to live there all by themselves because nobody else wanted to get sick. They built a little community there, with houses and even a school. They had to be really careful not to touch each other, so they came up with ways to do things without touching, like using long sticks when they wanted to give something to someone else.

For a long time, people with leprosy had to live on Spinalonga because there wasn't any medicine to cure them. But after a while, scientists found a medicine that could cure leprosy. So, people with leprosy could finally leave Spinalonga and go live with their families again.

But even though people don't live on Spinalonga anymore, it's still a really interesting place to visit. You can take a boat to the island and see all the old houses and buildings that the people with leprosy used to live in. It's a reminder of how far we've come in learning about diseases and how to keep people healthy.