Leprosy

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Leprosy is an infectuous disease. It has been known for a very long time. Today, it is mostly referred to as Hansen's disease, named after the person who discovered the bacterium, Gerhard Armauer Hansen. It is caused by a bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae.

Today the disease is curable by a cocktail of antibiotics. It takes between 6 months and 2 years to cure a person. Unfortunately, the drugs may not be available in developing countries (where there are the most cases of leprosy). As of 2004, the estimated number of new infections was about 400.000.

Getting the disease is hard, since it requires close contact with someone who has it, over a long period of time. In addition, about 95% of the people seem to be naturally immune to it.

Most cases of leprosy occur in India, and other developing countries. There are practically no cases of leprosy in the developed world. This is because there are excellent drugs and people regularly take antibiotics which will kill the leprosy bacteria.

In former times, leprosy was seen as a divine punishment for sins committed.

The symptoms of leprosy are irregular spots and patches on the skin. These are either ligher colored than the sourrounding skin, or reddish in color. On those patches, hair will fall out, and they will feel numb to the patient. Nerves will form knots there. With the illness progressing the sense of touch will become less and less (until the patient feels completely numb). So called leptomes and ulcers will eat away the skin, the flesh and the organs on the patches.

Usually people do not die of leposy, but of secondary infections and diseases they get.

For many years there was a leprosy colony on the Hawaiian Island of Molokai. 1000's of people from the United States that had the disease were sent there. It was a very sad place for many years.