LEPROSY, that ancient, disfiguring disease thought to have been eradicated hundreds of years ago, has been hiding out in Britain, in a most unlikely place. A recent study published in the journal Science says researchers found two species of the bacterium infecting red squirrels in Ireland, Scotland and several isles off the English coast. On one of them, Brownsea Island, they discovered a medieval strain nearly identical to that found in a skeleton buried some 730 years ago in Winchester, about 50 miles from Brownsea. “It is remarkable that [the bacterium] has persisted for centuries undetected,” wrote Roland Brosch of France’s Pasteur Institute in a commentary accompanying the study. He added that those looking to control the disease must accept the possibility that there are undiscovered sources of leprosy “existing under our noses.”
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is caused primarily by the Mycobacterium leprae, though recent work has shown that a closely related bacterium known as Mycobacterium lepromatosis can cause it as well. These bacteria infect the skin, very slowly destroying the tissue and associated nerves, leading to terrible disfigurement. The infection can be cured with antibiotics, but treatment may take a year or longer.
The pathogen was likely transferred from humans to animals hundreds of years ago, says one of the study’s authors, Stewart Cole, director of the Global Health Institute at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.