[HN Gopher] Rising evidence that leprosy has become endemic in S...
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       Rising evidence that leprosy has become endemic in Southeastern
       United States
        
       Author : geox
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2023-07-30 20:57 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (wwwnc.cdc.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (wwwnc.cdc.gov)
        
       | nimbius wrote:
       | So but...why Florida? This is a disease with a vector that
       | requires close interpersonal contact. I figured it was sort of
       | rare I. 2023
        
         | jvanderbot wrote:
         | Close interpersonal contact sounds a lot like spring break in
         | tourist towns. Off the cuff guess.
        
       | HWR_14 wrote:
       | Apparently leprosy is treatable, and with treatment underway is
       | no longer contagious in a matter of days.
        
         | raggi wrote:
         | Sadly in regions such as this beliefs and new laws are
         | increasingly inhibiting treatments. This is a terrifying
         | outcome in all cases but particularly with infectious diseases.
        
       | stillbourne wrote:
       | Title is misinformation and doesn't match the content of the
       | link.
        
         | Vecr wrote:
         | It's possible leprosy is endemic and the detected cases are a
         | "tip of the iceberg", but I think an infectious disease doctor
         | looked at a similar report recently and was confused why that
         | would be assumed to be the case. Institutional knowledge on
         | leprosy has probably been lost, and it's possible in the past
         | that undetected infection and spread was commonly known about
         | but not told to the public or new doctors and a current
         | infectious disease doctor would not know about it, but I'm not
         | sure about this situation in general.
        
       | Ariarule wrote:
       | While the abstract does say there's "rising evidence that leprosy
       | has become endemic in the southeastern United States", the actual
       | title is "Case Report of Leprosy in Central Florida, USA, 2022"
       | and that's a more honest description of what this is.
       | 
       | The second reference -- https://www.hrsa.gov/hansens-disease --
       | shows cases in the entire US bouncing from around 160 to 220
       | since _2011_ up through 2020: "Most (95%) of the human population
       | is not susceptible to infection... Treatment with standard
       | antibiotic drugs is very effective." The Florida dashboard which
       | is the third reference shows 14 cases in that state total in
       | 2021.
        
       | Paul-Craft wrote:
       | So what? Over 95% of humans are immune to leprosy. [0] Not only
       | that, it's so hard to even culture in a lab, actually _spreading_
       | it in the wild is a bit of a challenge.
       | 
       | [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/transmission/index.html
       | 
       | [1]:
       | https://www.internationaltextbookofleprosy.org/chapter/assay...
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-30 23:01 UTC)