Study: Armadillos Cause Leprosy

Thursday, 28 April 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Next time you’re eating out, avoid ordering the armadillo. According to the New York Times, researchers now believe that the armored mammals can cause leprosy in humans. It joins a list of other diseases—the flu, H.I.V./AIDS and SARS—that have jumped from animal to human. Virtually eradicated in this country, leprosy is still endemic in other countries—traveling to those countries is usually how people get the disease. But in the handful of cases where patients hadn’t traveled abroad doctors found a surprising connection: armadillos. People in the Southwest hunt armadillos, and skin them and sometimes, eat them—all ways, according to researchers, to contract leprosy.

(Image via Wikipedia)

A study about the connection between leprosy and armadillos was published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read the abstract.