International Leprosy Association -
History of Leprosy

    • International Leprosy Association -
    History of Leprosy

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    Overview:

    • World
    • Africa
    • The Americas
    • Eastern Mediterranean
    • Europe
    • South-East Asia
    • Western Pacific

    World

    Leprosy has been present since earliest times. The genome of M. leprae, the mycobacterium that causes leprosy, is ancient. It probably originated in eastern Africa more than 100,000 years ago. When the genome was mapped in 1993, scientists discovered that it had shed all but the bare necessities for its metabolism, and it continued to survive by being very economical. *1 It does not infect many people and it does not kill its host, yet it continues to infect sufficient numbers in order to ensure its transmission. The disease appears to have spread with the flows of migration out of Africa into... >>>

    Africa

    On the basis of current genetic studies of the genome of M. leprae, it appears that leprosy has spread from Africa to the rest of the world. One strain of leprosy can be traced from the Western parts of Africa to islands in the Caribbean, travelling along the routes taken by the slave trade. The same strain was also conveyed into Portugal and Spain and back again into West Africa. On the other side of the continent, another strain of M Leprae has travelled between East Africa and India. Archaeologists have found bones that show the characteristic damage caused by leprosy in the Middle East an... >>>

    The Americas

    The strain of M. leprae found in the Americas is closest to the European/North African variety (Monot et al). Researchers therefore suggest that colonialism and emigration from the old world most probably contributed to the introduction of leprosy into the new world. For instance, in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Scandinavian immigrants settled in the Midwest, there were many cases of leprosy at the same time as there was a major epidemic in Norway. In addition, wild armadillos from Louisiana, which are naturally infected with M. leprae, harbor the European/North African SNP type 3 strain... >>>

    Eastern Mediterranean

    The Old Testament disease category sara’at may include a wide variety of skin diseases and may also include what we recognise as modern day leprosy. Before 1980, no skeletal evidence had been found for leprosy in this region, but in 1980, several cases were reported from the Egyptian Dakhleh Oasis dating to the Hellenistic period (200 BCE) (Dzierzyzkray-Rogalski 1980). The skeletal remains were of Caucasians buried in a Nubian cemetery. Zias has found skeletal evidence of leprosy in the Byzantine monasteries of the Judaean Desert, where people in need of asylum would seek shelter amongst the ... >>>

    Europe

    The most recent theory is that leprosy came to Europe from both West and East Africa and then also from Central Asia and the Middle East. Scientists argue that the history of leprosy in Europe was dominated by a drawn-out leprosy epidemic that may have lasted a millennium and peaked between the 11th and 14th centuries. (Mendum et al. p.4) The early presence of leprosy in England is established from the archaeology of skeletons from the 4th century AD. These were excavated from a Romano-British cemetery, at Poundbury Camp in Dorchester, between 1966 and 1973. (Reader) Two skeletons from 10th t... >>>

    South-East Asia

    Recent archaeological findings of the skeletal remains of a middle-aged male from the second millennium BC showing the changes characteristic of leprosy have been identified in Rajasthan, India. This evidence demonstrates that leprosy existed in this region at least 4,000 years ago, having spread along trade routes between East Africa and northern India. Genome studies are currently hoping to determine how this strain of M. leprae fits with those that have already been traced (Live Science). In India, ancient Hindu sources dating from 600BC, the Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita refer ... >>>

    Western Pacific

    Amongst the nations in the Pacific, to select a few, the Philippines, China, Japan, Vietnam, and many of the Pacific islands have had a significant part to play in leprosy’s history. Scientists are currently investigating the spread of leprosy throughout the world by investigating the genome of M. leprae.  While it appears that an ancestral strain originated in East Africa about 100,000 years ago, there is also one early strain that can be identified from both China and from New Caledonia (Medum et al.). Intriguingly, an epidemic of leprosy broke out on Nauru in 1920. As the epidemic was decl... >>>