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But hey, someone at Newsweek notice that there are a few cases in Florida, so the press is having a field day.
from Newsweek
The U.S. is experiencing cases creep upwards, with the number of infections across the country more than doubling over the past decade, both in people exposed to armadillos and those who aren't.
OH NO. Cases are doubling!
that claim is straight out of the book how to lie with statistics. It makes it seem like it is becoming an epidemic.
Until you notice the actual numbers
According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year, there were 159 new cases of leprosy in the U.S. in 2020, around a fifth of which were in Florida. Of the Florida cases, 81 percent were found in central Florida.
I had to get my calculator out to figure it out, and ut turns out this fearful epidemic is...32 cases.
the bad news? Mild cases might be overlooked, since few American doctors have seen a case. Luckily most skin lesions will be biopsied, but mild cases in people with good immune systems might not have a lot of symptoms and might not be recognized by doctors.
Bur once diagnosed, it can be treated and cured. So not an epidemic, and probably not a disease you have to worry about catching.
but hey, it makes a good press, and will increase the hysteria about all those illegal migrants fleeing into the USA. And of course, by saying it is present in Florida, they can hit DeSantis, who is one of the whipping boys of the US MSM.
this is not a new story, of course: This video is from 8 years ago:
Smithsonian magazine has a nice write up here.
before you start to worry about epidemics or making armadillo eradication plans, find comfort in this: Though Hansen’s disease, as it is clinically known, annually affects 250,000 people worldwide, it only infects about 150 to 250 Americans. Even more reassuring: up to 95 percent of the population is genetically unsusceptible to contracting it. And these days, it is highly treatable and not nearly as contagious as once believed.
And as for armadillos—the risk of transmission to humans is low. Only the nine-banded armadillo is known to carry the disease. And, most people in the U.S. who come down with the chronic bacterial disease get it from other people while traveling outside the country.,
For a more scientific review of the disease in the west, check out this article.
the good news: It is easily treated with drugs.
The main problem? Few American doctors have seen it.
Despite working in Africa, I have only seen one case, and that was a minor lesion that I biopsied thinking it was skin cancer. Another lesion I suspected and biopsied turned out to be Kaposi's Sarcoma. In that case, one of our elderly sisters had worked with lepers and she said it didn't smell like leprosy, and she was correct.
The reason I stress she was elderly is that they now treat leprosy as out- patients.
In the 1980s I worked with a nun who held clinics that screened people in the villages of Liberia, and traveled periodically to give out medicine for them to take and monitor them for complications. So it is easily treated and cured if found early.
The problem? Once the damage is done, it takes a specialist plastic surgeon or hand surgeon to fix it.
WebMD has a long article about the symptoms of the various forms of Hansen's disease, and the various treatments, including long term treatment with antibiotics, and in some cases the use of the controversial drug thalidomide for skin lesions.
If you are interested in how it was treated in the past:
the 1950 book Miracle at Carville tells the story of a woman with the disease, including the story of the only lepersarium in the US in Carville LA, and about the miracle that happened when the sulfa drug Dapsone was discovered that cured it.
and another recent best seller, Covenant of Water has a subplot about a doctor in India who treated leprosy patients before the treatment was available.
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