CDC Issues Warning On Rise In Florida Leprosy Cases

The Hill reports:

Health officials say that cases of leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, are surging in Central Florida. In a news release Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Central Florida has accounted for 81 percent of reported cases in the state and almost one-fifth of reported cases nationwide.

Authorities said that several cases in Central Florida have demonstrated no clear evidence of zoonotic exposure or traditionally known risk factors. They also noted that they have reported a case of lepromatous leprosy in the area in a male resident without risk factors for known transmission routes.

More from the CDC alert:



Florida, USA, has witnessed an increased incidence of leprosy cases lacking traditional risk factors. Those trends, in addition to decreasing diagnoses in foreign-born persons, contribute to rising evidence that leprosy has become endemic in the southeastern United States.

Travel to Florida should be considered when conducting leprosy contact tracing in any state. Prolonged person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets is the most widely recognized route of transmission.

A high percentage of unrelated leprosy cases in the southern United States were found to carry the same unique strain of M. leprae as nine-banded armadillos in the region, suggesting a strong likelihood of zoonotic transmission.

A recent systematic review analyzing studies conducted during 1945–2019 supports an increasing role of anthroponotic and zoonotic transmission of leprosy.

However, Rendini et al. demonstrated that many cases reported in eastern United States, including Georgia and central Florida, lacked zoonotic exposure or recent residence outside of the United States.

Given those reports, there is some support for the theory that international migration of persons with leprosy is a potential source of autochthonous transmission.