• nublug@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      4 months ago

      no! to get leprosy from an armadillo you’d have to kill them and eat their (liver or kidney i forget which has the leprosy) fuckin RAW. they do not carry leprosy outside of this organ and you can’t get it from touching them in any way. they don’t deserve the slander, pets for all the armadillos!

      • smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        Do you have a source on that? Everything I’ve found through google says otherwise.

        “There have also been reports of people getting leprosy after coming in direct contact with nine-banded armadillos, which can carry the bacteria that causes leprosy.“

        Source

        • nublug@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          can’t seem to find what i had seen before with all those details after a quick search but some evidence for the touch vs eating bit is here: here.

          Over 60% of the Brazilian people tested had positive antibodies for the bacteria, which is widely accepted as proof of exposure.  This doesn’t mean that looking at or being around an Armadillo that carries leprosy will give it to a human. The researchers collecting the data from the region believed that the transmission occurred because the people there eat the Armadillos.  Since they are abundant, people there hunt and kill them for food, unaware that the Armadillos carry leprosy.

          for the life of me i can’t remember where i heard it but it was in the last few weeks and i heard not read it so maybe it was a yt video. sorry!

          regardless the point is it’s pretty rare to catch and nowadays easily treatable and only a small fraction of armadillos have it and we gave it to them 400 yrs ago and in places where people do get infections from armadillos it’s in areas where they’re so common they’re regularly eaten. maybe i was mashing those facts together weirdly in my head.

          • smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            4 months ago

            20% is not a small number. Also it’s wrong to claim you can only get it from eating their liver or kidneys raw when you can catch it from direct contact alone.

            Regardless of if it is treatable or not it’s irresponsible to make claims that are factually wrong with something that can cause debilitating nerve damage before you even know what it is.

            • nublug@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              4 months ago

              20% isn’t the number i saw, it was 16%, and that is a small portion; it means if you encounter an armadillo there’s an 84% chance it doesn’t have it. combine that with 95% immunity and the debateable chance of contraction by simple touch when most sources say you need prolonged exposure to contract it even if you are one of the 5% vulnerable, and the long standing stigma and mistreatment against these creatures for it, and that just because i can’t find the exact thing i’m referencing doesn’t mean i’m factually wrong when a quick perusal of the shitty search results shows many sources disagreeing with each other on number infected as well as can touch transmit it, nah, i’m not being irresponsible saying you can pet the armadillos.

              also your source proving me wrong is a single line in a florida source saying ‘there are reports you can get it with touch’. lmfao.

      • smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        This nocturnal animal, the only mammal other than humans that is known to get leprosy, is a common sight in Florida. Papers estimate that, in some areas, 15 – 20% of armadillos carry the *M. leprae *bacteria.

        “There have also been reports of people getting leprosy after coming in direct contact with nine-banded armadillos, which can carry the bacteria that causes leprosy.“

        Source

        You wanna gamble on being immune to bacteria by all means, I’ll keep my hands off them to be safe.

          • smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            I don’t have 6k for leprosy treatment but fortune on your roll. I’m just saying there is a risk of contacting it through touch for the sake of clarity. It’s a weird thing that can happen from a mostly harmless animal that can have shitty consequences.

    • H1jAcK@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      They can carry rabies, so maybe don’t go picking up random ones in the wild