At 16, Vijay Waghmare from Asangaon village in Maharashtra’s Satara district felt constantly exhausted. A passionate dancer, he spent most evenings practising with friends and initially brushed off the fatigue, weight loss and joint pain as the result of poor sleep, irregular meals and physical exertion . His farmer parents took him to a local physician, who prescribed painkillers. For a while, the symptoms eased. Within weeks, they returned and worsened. Alarmed, his family took him to a private hospital in Satara, where doctors suspected tuberculosis and advised immediate treatment. But unable to afford prolonged care there, they travelled to Mumbai ’s KEM Hospital. After extensive tests, doctors arrived at a different diagnosis: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), a chronic autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues and organs.…