Red squirrels in the British Isles are infected with leprosy bacilli

• DOI: 10.1126/science.aah3783
• Publication Date: 2016-11-11T13:42:57Z
• Authors: Charlotte Avanzi; Jorge del-Pozo; Andrej Benjak; Karen Stevenson; Victor R. Simpson; Philippe Busso; Joyce McLuckie; Chloé Loiseau; Colin Lawton; Janne Schoening; Darren J. Shaw; Jérémie Piton; Lucio Vera-Cabrera; Jesùs S. Velarde-...; Fergal McDermott; Stephen V. Gordon; Stewart T. Cole; Anna L. Meredith
• Keywords: medieval; 0301 basic medicine; Polymorphism, Genetic; zoonotic leprosy; united-states; Sciuridae; Genomics; Toll-Like Receptor 1; United Kingdom; leprae; Mycobacterium; 3. Good health; Mycobacterium leprae; 03 medical and health sciences; Protein Domains; Leprosy; Animals; Humans; mycobacterium-lepromatosis; Mexico; Phylogeny; Disease Reservoirs

British squirrels infected with leprosy

With the exception of armadillos in the Americas, leprosy infections are considered almost exclusively restricted to humans. Avanzi et al. examined warty growths on the faces and extremities of red squirrels in the British Isles and found that two species of leprosy-causing organisms were to blame (see the Perspective by Stinear and Brosch). Mycobacterium leprae in the southern population of Brownsea Island squirrels originated from a medieval human strain. M. lepromatosis was found in red squirrels from elsewhere in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Human leprosy is proving hard to eradicate, despite available drugs. Perhaps other wildlife species are also reservoirs for this stubborn disease.

Science , this issue p. 744 ; see also p. 702