150-250 Americans Each Year Get Leprosy From Armadillos By Hunting, Skinning and Eating Armadillos

Now documented as a source of leprosy in the United States.

150-250 Americans Each Year Get Leprosy From Armadillos By Hunting, Skinning and Eating Armadillos

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:

Read the whole story at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/health/28leprosy.html?_r=1&hp

They are a source of leprosy infections in humans.

Leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, is an ancient scourge that each year about 150 to 250 people in the United States and 250,000 in the world contract the illness.

Probable Zoonotic Leprosy in the Southern United States

New England Journal Of Medicine

Richard W. Truman, Ph.D., Pushpendra Singh, Ph.D., Rahul Sharma, Ph.D., Philippe Busso, Jacques Rougemont, Ph.D., Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi, M.D., Adamandia Kapopoulou, M.S., Sylvain Brisse, Ph.D., David M. Scollard, M.D., Ph.D., Thomas P. Gillis, Ph.D., and Stewart T. Cole, Ph.D.

N Engl J Med 2011; 364:1626-1633 April 28, 2011

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1010536

DNA links leprosy strain to armadillos, researchers say (chron.com)
Leprosy Jumps from U.S. Armadillos to Humans (livescience.com)
Swiss-US team finds indigenous cases of leprosy in the Southern United States (eurekalert.org)
DNA links armadillos to leprosy cases in South (cbsnews.com)
Eating armadillos blamed for leprosy (msnbc.msn.com)
Leprosy May Pass Between Armadillos and People (webmd.com)
Yes, You Can Get Leprosy From an Armadillo (news.sciencemag.org)
Armadillo passes leprosy to humans (blogs.nature.com)
Armadillos may spread leprosy (sciencenews.org)
Indigenous cases of leprosy found in the United States (medicalxpress.com)

150-250 Americans Each Year Get Leprosy From Armadillos By Hunting, Skinning and Eating Armadillos

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