Saturday, April 30, 2011

Southern U.S.: Armadillos blamed for leprosy

A strain of leprosy found in armadillos has been identified in dozens of people in the southern United States, indicating the skin disease can be transmitted directly from animals to humans. 

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01882/arm_1882999c.jpg

(The Telegraph) The report published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that the disease, most often found in India, can originate in the United States and infect humans who hunt armadillo and butcher the meat.
Leprosy, sometimes called Hansen's disease after the Norwegian doctor who discovered it in 1873, is a bacterial infection that causes lesions on a person's extremities.
About 249,000 new cases were reported globally in 2008, and about 150 cases arise in the United States each year.
Left untreated, it can lead to blindness and nerve damage that cripples the hands and feet, but it is usually curable with antibiotics.
The team of US and Swiss researchers looked at 50 leprosy patients in the United States and 33 wild armadillos with the disease.

They were able to identify a never-before-seen armadillo genotype of the bacterium in 28 animals and 22 people who had not gone abroad and could not have contracted the disease elsewhere.

"It became clear that leprosy patients who never traveled outside the US but lived in areas where infected armadillos are prevalent were infected with the same strain as the armadillos," said the study.

Contrary to popular theory, it is not a highly contagious disease, and about 95 percent of the human population is naturally immune.

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