News Excerpt:
Evidence from archaeological sites in the mediaeval English city of Winchester shows that English red squirrels once served as an important host for Leprosy bacteria.
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Leprosy (Hansen’s disease):
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Carriers of Leprosy:
- Leprosy is one of the oldest recorded diseases in human history and is still prevalent to this day in Asia, Africa, and South America.
- For thousands of years, humans were thought to be the only natural host of leprosy.
- But there has been the discovery of Mycobacterium leprae (Leprosy bacteria) in several wild animals in recent decades, such as armadillos and, more recently, red squirrels and chimpanzees.
- While scientists have traced the evolutionary history of the mycobacterium that causes it, how it may have spread to people from animals in the past was not known beyond some hints that red squirrels in England may have served as a host.
Key highlights of the study:
- The study found that the mediaeval squirrel strain is more closely related to human strains from mediaeval Winchester than to modern squirrel strains from England.
- It indicates that the infection was circulating between the people and animals in the Middle Ages in a way that hadn’t been detected before.
- The researchers studied 25 human and 12 squirrel samples to look for M. leprae at two archaeological sites in Winchester.
- The city was well known for its leprosarium and connections to the fur trade.
- In the Middle Ages, squirrel fur was used to trim and line garments. Many people also raised them as pets.
