Last month, BBC Mundo described a group of Puerto Ricans as ticking time bombs. In northern Puerto Rico, one in every 2,000 people is albino, but more specifically, many suffer from Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome. “My dad was albino and in less than a year, we saw him die because of pulmonary fibrosis: he was losing his ability to breathe, he was suffocating all the time, we had to help him walk, until he could no longer move,” Carmen Bosques, who also suffers from HPS, told the BBC. Now, she waits for the same thing that happened to her father to happen to her. The only way to be cured is to have a lung transplant, which is not available in Puerto Rico. A 2008 USA Today article said that a transplant costs $300,000.
The BBC revisited the topic of albinos in Puerto Rico this month, and shared a gallery titled “The Complex Life of Albinos Under the Intense Puerto Rican Sun.” The pictures were taken by Colombian photographer Adriana Monsalve.
Check out the images below:
