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Leprosy or Hansen's ideas is cause by a bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae.
It is a rod-shaped bacteria discovered in 1873 by Hansen. The bacteria Mycobacterium leprae is a non tuberculous mycobacteria.

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One of the oldest infectious diseases in human history

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One of the oldest infectious diseases in human history

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Leprocy was first described in osteo-archaelolgical remains found in India and dated back to 2000 BC. It was discovered by Dr. Gerhard Armer Hansen in 1874. He was searching for the unknown bacteria in the skin nodules of lepers.

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A zoonosis disease can be transmitted to humans from animals. Leprosy is zoonosis in certain primate species

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Map of the spread of Leprosy over centuries.

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The disease has been around for millions of years and is most common in India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Bangladesh. However, it is an ancient disease and has been described in many ancient texts. It is unknown and impossible to find out where the disease first emerged, it is even thought that it emerged in defeat places around the same time. The disease has spread to regions all over the world. Studies have sown that it spread through migration paths of early hams from East Africa to Asian and the disease established itself in eastern and central Europe and the Mediterranean Basin roughly 40,000 years ago. It then spread to the Americas in the last 500 years.

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Billons of people over the centuries have been infected with M. leprae. The disease its self is not necessarily deadly in its self but those infected with the disease wind up having lifelong disabilities

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how virulent a disease is means how severe or harmful the effects of the disease are. In the past Leprosy was a highly contagious and devastating disease due to the effects it has on the skin and nerves. The effects of the disease on the human body and socially made it highly virulent. There was a lot of prejudice against people who contracted leprosy and often did not receive treatment and instead were socially isolated and forced to live in poverty and alone. Today, Leprosy is not very virulent since the treatment is highly effective as long as it is administered quickly. The sooner treatment begins the more nerve damage that can be prevented, as well as other disabilities caused by Leprosy, like blindness.

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For most of the history of Leprocy the only treatment was containment to keep the disease from spreading. The disease was highly contagious and was so deeply feared that even doctors of ancient times wouldn't come near the infected. iN 1873 Dr. Gerhard Hansen was the first to identify the agent that caused leprosy. He made the discovery of the bacteria M. leprae while examining a nasal biopsy with multiple rod-shaped bacilli under a microscope. Treatment of the disease today begun being developed in the 1940's but before then it was sometimes treated with chaulmoogra oil, which had very limited success. In the 1940's it was found that sulfone therapy had great benefits in treating Leprosy. However it was a very toxic treatment and in the 1970's the use of the drug dapsone was discontinued as a treatment due to drug resistance. In the 1960's it was discovered that there were many variations in the cellular immune response in people infected by the disease and this discovery aided in understanding the disease further and coming up with a treatment through tests in the pads on the feet of mice and on armadillo's. Today, it is treated with a combination of atibiotics like rifampicin, clofazimine and sometimes also dapsone. So much is still unknown about the disease, we are still unable to screen for it effectively and early treatment reply on self identification by the infected or by the physician. However, there is a promising technology in screening for the disease through polymerase chain reaction or by measuring antibodies to phenolic glycolipid-1.

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Historically Leprosy is a disease that has been heavily stigmatized. Society shunned those affected by the disease forcing them from there homes, being abandoned by their families and forced to live a life of extreme poverty while wearing a bell to let people whom are not infected know their proximity to the person infected with leprosy. Governments around the world have made laws that discriminate against people with leprosy. For example in India today there are laws that require people diagnosed with leprosy to pay much higher premiums in life insurance policies and allows for a wife or husband of a person affected to quickly divorce the sick without having to pay for their upkeep. One of the biggest efforts that Governments made in the containment of the disease were leper colonies. They became widespread in the Middle Ages and were built in isolated areas far away from the rest of the population and was often run by the church. A more recent example of these colonies is the Hawaiian island of Kalaupapa. It was established in 1866 and was an active colony for about 100 years people were forced there and were not allowed to ever leave the island. over 8,000 people infected with leprosy lived and died there and there are people still on the island now living out the rest of their life there. Many laws formed by governments around the world have made people affected by the disease basically criminals and there hasn't been much done in order to reform these laws.

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Though today there is better education on Leprosy and has begun to be destigmatized and laws reformed in many countries there are still places and countries like India where people are not as educated the social stigma is still very strong. People in real areas are still discriminated against when they are diagnosed or suspected of the disease People will be beaten and kicked out of their homes and often won't get treatment for years, allowing the disease to progress out of fear of being mistreated or losing their homes and families.

It is very important to get treatment as quickly as possible to avoid serious nerve damage from the disease so better education on early symptoms and better education of society as a whole on there being an effective treatment as well as how the disease is spread through air droplets rather than skin to skin contacting more real areas can help destigmatize Leprosy and encourage people to get treatment sooner without ruining their lives.

Another way that Governments can better respond to the disease is by reforming laws that discriminate against those diagnosed with Leprosy and instead protect them from being discriminated against in society.

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The societal effect of Leprosy on those who suffer from the disease is still pretty life ruining. Though education has helped and people are treated a bit better today then they were int he past, people in places where leprosy is common they still experience so much abuse and discrimination. They often are forced into colonies with other people who are suffering or have suffered with Leprosy. They tend to have a hard time finding a job and more often than not live in poverty. If diagnosed with leprosy some people are beaten by their spouses or family miners and put out on the streets and children even get kicked out of schools. This has caused people to avoid going to the doctor for treatment leading to the disease progression and they losing limbs. The treatment of the people with leprosy has changed in most parts of the world however there is still a very negative stigma attached to the disease.

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The most revealing aspect I learned about my disease is how difficult It has been to find a treatment for Leprosy because it has many variations in the cellular immune response in people. We still don't have an effective way to screen for or treat the disease, it is usually treated with a combination of antibiotics but that is not always effective. What surprised me about Leprosy is just how old it is. It has been around for centuries. The oldest archeological remains found of the disease date back to 2000 BC. Since Leprosy is such an old disease there is a lot of history to it and I did find it difficult to cover how it is handled today as well as touch on the history of the disease. I especially had a lot of history in the societal effects and leadership response to go through, I think adding a post where I could talk more about how those things changed over time would help explain those two subjects better.