Can a Dog Get Leprosy From an Armadillo
An international team led by researchers at Colorado State University has institute that homo contact with wild armadillos — including eating the meat — has contributed to extremely high infection rates of a pathogen that can cause leprosy in Pará, Brazil.
Mycobacterium leprae tin can cause leprosy, a chronic disease characterized by lesions of the skin and nervus impairment, in humans. Other researchers have previously documented transmission of M. leprae to humans by ix-banded armadillos in the southern Us.
The findings from this new enquiry have implications for public wellness education programs related to these mammals and zoonotic transmission, or the spread of infection between animals and people.
The study, "Evidence of zoonotic leprosy in Pará, Brazilian Amazon, and risks associated with man contact or consumption of armadillos," was published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Armadillos have been shown to transmit M. leprae to people in Texas, Louisiana and Florida, where humans come into contact with the animals. But when Juliana Portela, a graduate student at the Federal University of Pará in Brazil, proposed conducting a survey of people who hunt, kill and eat armadillos to see if they were at increased risk for leprosy, her advisors — including CSU'due south John Spencer — were skeptical.
"In the western Pará country in Brazil's Amazon region, leprosy is already hyper-endemic," said Spencer, senior author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology.
In Brazil, clinicians diagnose about 25,000 cases of leprosy each year. In comparison, the total number of new leprosy cases found in the U.S. is near 200 each year.
"This region [western Pará] has one of the highest new case detection rates in the whole country," Spencer explained. "More than 50 percentage of people in this area, on average, will be positive for the antibody, PGL-I, and the rate is even higher, over xc percentage, for some leprosy patients."
A person can test positive for the antibody only even so non have the disease, Spencer said. Testing positive for the antibiotic means that a person has been infected with Grand. leprae, only it is not a good indicator of disease progression. The best way to diagnose the disease is through clinical signs and symptoms, including pare lesions, loss of sensation and nerve damage, pain and inflammation.
Survey sought answers virtually contact with armadillos
The research team, which also included scientists from Switzerland and holland as well as three universities in Brazil, surveyed 146 people living in the boondocks of Belterra. Scientists asked questions about the extent of contact with armadillos: Did they hunt or kill the animals, handle armadillo meat, or eat the meat?
What they institute was amazing, said Spencer:
- 65 pct of people surveyed had some contact with armadillos
- 65 percent were involved in either cleaning the meat or preparing it for cooking, and
- 65 percent also ate armadillo meat at least once a year.
More than 18 percent, or 27 people, identified themselves as hunters.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from people, as well as tissue samples from the liver and spleen of the animals killed by the hunters, for evidence of infection with M. leprae. People participating in the written report likewise received a gratuitous exam past experienced leprosy clinicians, and those diagnosed with the affliction received free treatment from a local wellness clinic.
Scientists found a positive antibody test in 63 per centum of the people who took part in the survey. The team did not find much of a difference between people who ate or did non eat armadillo meat, and Spencer said there was not a major departure betwixt people who cleaned the animals and prepared the meat or non, or in those who hunted or did not chase the mammals.
Greater hazard with more consumption
Just the most startling finding was in people who ate armadillo meat frequently — more than one time a month and, in some cases, twice a week. The strength of the antibody in these individuals was 50 percent higher than the other groups.
"Overall, they had a lot of gamble factors, and a lot more than exposure to armadillos than other people in the group," said Spencer.
What the squad found makes educating the public — in Brazil, the U.Due south. and around the globe — extremely important, he added.
"You can become diseases from eating all kinds of food," he said. "Millions of people eat sushi every mean solar day. Practice people retrieve well-nigh putting raw fish in their mouth?"
Similarly, with leprosy circulating from humans to animals (and the reverse), if you're going to eat armadillo, take precautions. Spencer recommends wearing gloves when cleaning the carcass, and make sure to cook the meat until it is well-washed.
"Your risk of picking upwards the disease from eating well-cooked meat is about zero," he said.
The inquiry team is following up this report past sequencing the genome of this strain of M. leprae to acquire more about what blazon of infection is circulating and how it might differ from strains plant in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Co-authors of this study include scientists and clinicians from Colorado State University (Mary Jackson, John Belisle and Mercedes Gonzalez-Juarrero), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland (Stewart Cole and Charlotte Avanzi), Leiden University Medical Eye in the Netherlands (Annemiek Geluk), Federal Academy of Pará, Belém, in Brazil (Claudio Salgado, Josafá Barreto and Moises Batista da Silva), Universidade Federal do Oeste practise Pará, Santarém in Brazil (Antonio Minervino) and the University of São Paulo Medical School in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil (Marco Andrey Cipriani Frade).
Source: https://cvmbs.source.colostate.edu/new-evidence-that-wild-armadillos-spread-leprosy-to-humans/
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