Leprosy and armadillos why

Armadillos have been shown to transmit M. In Brazil, clinicians diagnose about 25, cases of leprosy each year. In comparison, the total number of new leprosy cases found in the U. A person can test positive for the antibody but still not have the disease, Spencer said. Testing positive for the antibody means that a person has been infected with M. The best way to diagnose the disease is through clinical signs and symptoms, including skin lesions, loss of sensation and nerve damage, pain and inflammation.

The research team, which also included scientists from Switzerland and the Netherlands as well as three universities in Brazil, surveyed people living in the town of Belterra. Ninety-two countries did not report, several of which are known to have cases of leprosy. Hansen's Disease Leprosy. Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. Transmission Minus Related Pages.

Probably because Brazilian people have higher rates of leprosy, too, Spencer says. The U. While consuming armadillo meat may strike some as odd, the practice is relatively common in places where armadillos are plentiful and other sources of protein are scarce. In Portuguese, the nine-banded armadillo is also known as tatu-galinha , or the chicken armadillo, because of the taste of the meat, says Danilo Kluyber , head veterinarian of the Giant Armadillo Conservation Project sponsored by the Naples Zoo.

While nine-banded armadillos are the favourites, some species of naked-tailed armadillos and hairy armadillos are also sought after for their meat. In so doing, people sometimes handle and even bathe the animals, raising the risk for bacterial transmission, the study notes. The root causes for the continued high prevalence rates remain poverty, poor sanitation and nutrition, and lack of health care availability to treat those diagnosed before nerve damage and disability occur.

Dasypus novemcinctus , commonly known as the nine-banded armadillo in the U. In late s , another group of armadillos escaped from captivity in central Florida and spread throughout Florida, eventually merging with the Texan armadillos in the early s in the Florida Panhandle.

Around this time, Dr. Eleanor Storrs found that armadillos infected with M. Shortly after this, she and her team discovered that armadillos living in the wild in Texas and Louisiana were naturally infected by M. Exactly how the armadillos became infected by humans is not clear, but one theory is that they picked it up from contaminated soil by digging. Surveys of armadillos in the Gulf states found that up to 20 percent were infected with M.

Because they were the only animal other than humans in which the bacteria could be isolated, armadillos allowed scientists to study leprosy and possible treatments. Now, there are millions of armadillos in the southern U. In certain areas, people hunted them to serve at barbecues. All of this exposure eventually had consequences. In , Dr. In , another study from the same group found that a different strain type that existed only in central Florida was causing a second cluster of cases in armadillos and humans.

Both of these reports caused a huge amount of media coverage, with people being somewhat surprised and alarmed that this ungainly and not very cuddly animal was transmitting the oldest and one of the most feared diseases to humans. Still, once the excitement died down, most people probably resumed their behaviors with these animals, ignoring the possible risks involved. Two things stand out about Brazil. Armadillos are native to South America; and leprosy, first brought to Brazil over years ago by the European explorers and through the slave trade from West Africa, has been widespread there for hundreds of years.

Knowing this, our research team wanted to know how much human contact there was with armadillos in Brazil and whether this could lead to leprosy transmission from these animals as had been shown in the southern U. People living there frequently ate armadillos as a source of protein. The study concluded that similar to the southern states in the U. The broader message about this work is that wild animals harbor all kinds of diseases that can be transmitted to humans, particularly when there may be contact with blood or when eating the meat.