Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae and, for the first time, a team of scientists has documented its presence in wild chimpanzees deep in the forests of West Africa.
Have they contracted the disease from humans?
Researchers are pretty sure it is not , indicating that the disease has arisen from an unknown source, at least for the moment.
Leprosy outbreaks have affected at least two wild populations of western chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) in the Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau and the Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire, which are separated from each other by hundreds of kilometers, according to the authors in the preprint article published in bioRxiv , still pending peer review.
Hansen’s disease
This disease, which has been known for more than 3,000 years and that from 1873 -thanks to the investigations of the Norwegian doctor Gerhard Hansen- was seen to be an infectious disease, devastated Europe and the Middle East until approximately 1870, affecting 12 million of people around the world.
Visibly affects the skin , whose skin lesions, if left untreated, damage the nerves; something that can lead to mutilation of hands, feet, blindness and general loss of body parts. In humans, we have controlled it with antibiotics since the 1980s, but it has never been observed in chimpanzees in the wild (only captive chimpanzees).
Yes, leprosy had been found in other animals such as armadillos or pink squirrels, as they carry the identical bacterial genotype, known as 3I, which has also been found in outbreaks in relation to medieval Europe, and in all of them, it seems that the disease passed from people to animals. But analysis of the infected chimpanzees has yielded another solution: two rare genotypes, 2F and 4N / O, are those that present different chimpanzees found with traces of M. leprae , suggesting that the bacteria that cause leprosy are lurking elsewhere. partly in animals around chimpanzees or in their environment. The truth is that it affects them in the same way as humans: injuries and disfigurement of the face, ears, hands and legs.
Confirmed by fecal samples
To confirm the diagnosis, the team collected stool samples and detected the presence of the bacteria that causes leprosy, Mycobacterium leprae .
Treatment?
It is not very viable, because the treatment for leprosy requires months taking antibiotics and wild chimpanzees are not used to humans, so it is not possible to do the same with these animals.
At the moment, the infected chimps appear to be dealing with the disease, although one of them is visibly losing weight, according to experts.
Referencia: Leprosy, ancient scourge of humans, found to assail wild chimpanzees. Science Magazine 2020. doi:10.1126/science.abf6792 / Leprosy in wild chimpanzees Kimberley J. Hockings, Benjamin Mubemba, Charlotte Avanzi, Kamilla Pleh, Ariane Düx, Elena Bersacola, Joana Bessa, Marina Ramon, Sonja Metzger, Livia V. Patrono, Jenny E. Jaffe, Andrej Benjak, Camille Bonneaud, Philippe Busso, Emmanuel Couacy-Hymann, Moussa Gado, Sebastien Gagneux, Roch C. Johnson, Mamoudou Kodio, Joshua Lynton-Jenkins, Irina Morozova, Kerstin Mätz-Rensing, Aissa Regalla, Abílio R. Said, Verena J. Schuenemann, Samba O. Sow, John S. Spencer, Markus Ulrich, Hyacinthe Zoubi, Stewart T. Cole, Roman M. Wittig, Sebastien Calvignac-Spencer, Fabian H. Leendertz doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.10.374371
