Leprosy existed in the Americas long before the arrival of Europeans, study reveals

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• givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  I was going to say this was pretty obvious just because armadillos being the only other animal susceptible was unlikely if they’d never been around it…

  But apparently I missed the squirrel memo:

  Notably, the analyses also suggest that the strains found in red squirrels in the UK in 2016 are part of an American lineage that was introduced to the British Isles in the 19th century, where it subsequently spread. This discovery highlights the recent ability of the pathogen to cross continents, likely through human or commercial exchanges.

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