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One of the bits of wildlife trivia that I'm often exposed to is the one about armadillos and leprosy. Every now and then, a concerned friend/relative or a brilliantly informed customer will inform me that I shant
touch armadillos, because the animal is known to carry the dreaded disease. Well, it's true that armadillos can carry leprosy. It's also true that I handle armadillos all the time. I usually wear gloves, not for
biohazard protection, but because I have clean and dainty hands, and choose not to sully them with armadillodirt. I'm not actually worried that I'll contract leprosy. It's not just that the odds appear to be in
my favor: after all, only about 5% of armadillos carry the disease (or so I've read) and about 95% of people have a natural immunity to the disease (or so I've read) and I'm an optimistic fellow. I figure this is
another one of those wildlife issues, like venomous snakes or killer sharks in which I've got a 1000% better chance of dying on the car drive to the animal as from the animal itself. But to be more pragmatic about
it, I don't think there's any documented cases of leprosy transmission from armadillos to people.
Leprosy is a bacterial disease. The leprosy bacillus usually inhabits the cooler extremities of the human body (hands, ears, nose). It's theorized that the armadillo can carry it because of yet another fascinating
armadillo trait: low body temperature. Armadillos usually maintain a body temperature of around 90 degrees farenheit. This provides an environment conducive to the bacterial growth. Furthermore, armadillos can live for a
long time, which gives the slow-developing disease a chance to take off and do its dirty business. Thus, armadillos are used in the study of leprosy, since it's apparently impossible to grow the bacteria in a laboratory
environment. In fact, according to the reports, researchers collected the animals in the 1960's, merely guessing that they'd be good test subjects to introduce the disease to, and found that many armadillos already had
leprosy. I think these research efforts have resulted in the development of a vaccine, but it's not 100% effective.
Click here for Tampa Wildlife Removal by Dave Lueck, "The Trapper Guy".
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