There have been an increasing number of cases found in the area among people with no history of travel outside Florida and no risk factors, suggesting the disease could be endemic to the region.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is extremely rare in the U.S. and has usually been found in residents with a history of foreign travel or in people who immigrated from areas where it is more common.
But according to a new case report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that may be changing and physicians should be aware.
There are fewer than 200 cases a year in the U.S., and Florida was among the top reporting states in 2020 with 27 cases. Central Florida in particular accounted for 81 percent of those.
Federal statistics show incidence of leprosy in the U.S. peaked in the mid-1980s, with 434 cases in 1985. A drastic reduction in the annual number of documented cases followed, bottoming out in 2000 with just 77 cases.
In the past 20 years, the numbers have been slowly increasing, but the averages have been steady over the past decade.
"Leprosy is here in the United States. It's very low incidence and a very low endemic country, but it is here," said Linda Adams, chief of the National Hansen's Disease Program (NHDP) Laboratory Research Branch.
Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae that primarily affects the skin and peripheral nervous system. Treatment is usually a three-antibiotic cocktail, which is free to patients in the U.S. It kills the bacteria within a few days, so the person is no longer contagious.
Leprosy is also not highly contagious, and 95 percent of the human population has a natural immunity.
The CDC report said physicians can help identify and reduce the spread of the disease through their efforts to report cases and their support in further research to assess routes of transmission.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
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