This research concerns people living with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) in countries which have been declared to be non-endemic – that is, where leprosy is no longer considered to be a public health issue by the World Health Organization (WHO), due to the incidence of the disease being lower than 1 in a population of 10 000. The countries in question in this research are Laos and Cambodia. I first introduce the biomedical and socio-cultural aspects of leprosy, or leprosy as disease and as illness. I then describe the WHO’s approach to leprosy, which is centred on the elimination of leprosy. In my opinion, this totalizing approach does not adequately address the issue of the poverty in which many sufferers from leprosy live in Third-World countries which have been deemed non-endemic. I go on to describe some of the coping strategies patients use and their need of services offered or not by the government and anti-leprosy Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Following a humanitarian anthropology (and not exactly an anthropology of humanitarianism), I give an overview of the intervention (or the absence of intervention) surrounding leprosy on the part of the government and NGOs against leprosy in Laos and Cambodia. I emphasize the consequences of this intervention (or non-intervention) for the patients, including coping strategies specific to the disease and conditions of poverty of the patient, access to job opportunities following recovery (in Cambodia), and knowledge (or ignorance) of self-care practices. In conclusion, I suggest a two-level alternative model (institutional and local) promoting the adequate “living” assistance of patients afflicted with leprosy.