Armadillos Can Transmit Leprosy to Humans, Federal Researchers Confirm

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/health/28leprosy.html?_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=HE-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-ATL-042911-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

Armadillos have never been among the cuddly creatures routinely included in petting zoos, but on Wednesday federal researchers offered a compelling reason to avoid contact with the armored animals altogether: They are a source of leprosy infections in humans.

Using genetic sequencing machines, researchers were able to confirm that about a third of the leprosy cases that arise each year in the United States almost certainly result from contact with infected armadillos. The cases are concentrated in Louisiana and Texas, where some people hunt, skin and eat armadillos.

Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is an ancient scourge that has largely disappeared, but each year about 150 to 250 people in the United States and 250,000 in the world contract the illness. As long as the disease is identified relatively quickly, treatment with antibiotics — a one- to two-year regimen with three different drugs — offers an effective cure. But every year dozens of people in the United States do not recognize their skin lesions for what they are early enough and suffer lifelong nerve damage as a result.

Part of the problem is that doctors sometimes fail to consider leprosy in patients who have not traveled to parts of the world where the disease is endemic, like India, Brazil, Africa, the Philippines and other islands in the Western Pacific. Two-thirds of leprosy patients in the United States are people who have either lived or worked in such places before coming down with the illness.

More at the link --

[Warpy]

1. Fortunately, leprosy is still hard to contract

Even in South America, where armadillo is a major source of protein, there aren't huge outbreaks of it.

The problem lies in getting people to come in early enough since most of them just shrug it off as something else until permanent damage has occurred.

[razorman]

2. Actually, this information is nothing new. My father told me when I was a kid about armadilloes

being the only mammals aside from man that could carry leprosy. Fortunately, leprosy is not as contagious or deadly as once believed. It is easily treated if caught early enough.

[Drale]

3. TERRORIST ARE GOING TO USE ARMADILLOS AS WEAPONS!!

I can see the head lines on freeperville now. :rofl:

[postulater]

4. Is that why they look so strange? nt