Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Leprosy in Armadillos!!!


Armadillos have proven to be very important in the discovery of cures for leprosy because they are the only animal in North America that have shown to be susceptible to systematic infection of leprosy bacillus. This report shows the findings from wild armadillos in Texas. This article is unsure of how susceptible humans are to contracting leprosy from armadillos, but through excessive handling it is shown that the risk becomes greater.

The article includes many graphs to show where the infection of leprosy was the greatest and how these armadillos possibly contracted the disease.

http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/reprint/23/2/220.pdf

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