TY - JOUR AU - Sharma, Rahul AU - Singh, Pushpendra AU - Loughry, W.J. AU - Lockhart, J. Mitchell AU - Inman, W. Barry AU - Duthie, Malcolm AU - Pena, Maria AU - Marcos, Luis AU - Scollard, David AU - Cole, Stewart AU - Truman, Richard T1 - Zoonotic Leprosy in the Southeastern United States T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2015 VL - 21 IS - 12 SP - 2127 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Nine-banded armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) are naturally infected with Mycobacterium leprae and have been implicated in zoonotic transmission of leprosy. Early studies found this disease mainly in Texas and Louisiana, but armadillos in the southeastern United States appeared to be free of infection. We screened 645 armadillos from 8 locations in the southeastern United States not known to harbor enzootic leprosy for M. leprae DNA and antibodies. We found M. leprae–infected armadillos at each location, and 106 (16.4%) animals had serologic/PCR evidence of infection. Using single-nucleotide polymorphism variable number tandem repeat genotyping/genome sequencing, we detected M. leprae genotype 3I-2-v1 among 35 armadillos. Seven armadillos harbored a newly identified genotype (3I-2-v15). In comparison, 52 human patients from the same region were infected with 31 M. leprae types. However, 42.3% (22/52) of patients were infected with 1 of the 2 M. leprae genotype strains associated with armadillos. The geographic range and complexity of zoonotic leprosy is expanding. KW - leprosy KW - zoonotic leprosy KW - Hansen’s disease KW - Mycobacterium leprae KW - bacteria KW - armadillos KW - zoonoses KW - epidemiology KW - biomarkers KW - genotype KW - southeastern United States KW - Hansen disease KW - nine-banded armadillo KW - Dasypus novemcinctus KW - United States DO - 10.3201/eid2112.150501 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/21/12/15-0501_article ER - End of Reference