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Armadillos: Not just for tearing up your garden
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Left: nine-banded armadillo Right: 1800s man suffering from Leprosy
It's that time of year, where the sad little bodies of armadillos begin to litter the roadside. They are funny animals, built for digging but when frightened they jump--a very unfortunate instinct when the predator is a speeding car with a low from bumper. For many avid gardeners, it's probably a time of rejoicing. Armadillos are notorious destroyers of gardens because they love to root around in shallow soil for grubs, worms, and other creepy-crawlies. But there is more to them than ruining your expensive and carefully-cultivated flowers; they have been our essential partners in fighting leprosy.
Mycobacterium leprae, the bacteria responsible for leprosy, is found in two organisms: humans and armadillos; that's it. It won't grow in the lab on a petri dish or in other animals. That means to find treatments, researchers could test things like lethal doses and side effects on lab animals but they had no way to see how a drug would act on the bacteria itself.
No one is sure why M. leprae only goes after us and armadillos. One theory is that it likes to live in cooler regions of the body (why people have such damaged appendages in very progressed cases) and armadillos have a naturally low body temperature (several degrees below our own).
It wasn't too long ago that there was no cure for leprosy-- there were only treatments to drive it into a latent state. Though cases are rare in the United States, in countries like Indian, Tanzania, and Mexico it is not as well controlled. In Asia particularly, lepers are often cast out of their homes or voluntarily leave to live as wandering beggars. The WHO (World Health Organization) says we have a cure now, but it's no picnic. It is a course of 1-3 antibiotics that can last for years. Patients also have to deal with all the normal 'it will make you better if it doesn't make you sicker first' side effects of antibiotics. The WHO recognizes that it is often "the poorest of the poor" who are most seriously impacted by leprosy, and they are trying to make treatment available to all.
Can I get sick from an armadillo in my garden?
Yes, it's possible, but it's not likely. Armadillos can be carriers of leprosy, but it is debated how possible transfer to us it. There have been some cases in Texas where individuals with leprosy believe that contact with soil that armadillos had been digging in lead to their infection. While suspicions are strong, this has never been able to be confirmed as the source of infection. As always, the best prevention is to wash your hands and wear gloves ,especially if you know there have been armadillos where you are working or if you have any skin abrasions on your hands and arms. Infected armadillos are estimated to be only about 5% of the population, and researchers think that most people are naturally resistant to leprosy.
For most of us in the United States, leprosy is not a big worry. But for some in the world it has meant the end of time with their families and the beginning of a life of homeless solitude or being outcast into leper colonies. It is an ancient, biblical disease that had eluded us until very recently. And those pests destroying your flowerbeds were absolutely essential in making treatments and cures possible. Perhaps in the future our little partners will help us find a better, cheaper course of treatment so we can really stamp out this disease once and for all.
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