{"id":34180,"date":"2023-08-02T12:45:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T16:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=34180"},"modified":"2023-08-02T12:45:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T16:45:28","slug":"there-is-no-cdc-travel-advisory-for-leprosy-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/08\/02\/there-is-no-cdc-travel-advisory-for-leprosy-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"There Is No CDC Travel Advisory For Leprosy In Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases has reported that cases of leprosy are on the rise in Florida, noting that \u201ccentral Florida represents an endemic location for leprosy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cTravel to this area, even in the absence of other risk factors, should prompt consideration of leprosy in the appropriate clinical context,\u201d said the report<\/a> appearing in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, which is published by Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, contrary to headlines in multiple news outlets, the CDC has not issued a travel advisory for Florida. \u201cEmerging Infectious Diseases is published by CDC, but the authors are often not affiliated with CDC,\u201d an agency spokesperson tells Forbes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leprosy \u2014 a disease mentioned in the Bible\u2019s Old Testament and the third chapter of the Torah \u2014 has been chronicled for millennia, yet it is and always has been rare in the United States. Also known as Hansen\u2019s disease, the infectious disease primarily affects the skin and nervous system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2000, the United States has seen a gradual increase in the incidence of leprosy and, more recently, Florida has accounted for a disproportionate number of the nation\u2019s cases. In 2020, Florida reported 27 of the 159 new leprosy cases diagnosed across the United States. The following year, 13 leprosy cases were reported in Florida. Over the entirety of 2022, the Florida Department of Health reported eight new cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But cases are on the rise again. Since the beginning of 2023, Florida has averaged more than two new cases per month. Sixteen cases have been reported from January through July, nearly half of them in Brevard and Volusia counties along the Atlantic coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cLeprosy was once feared as a highly contagious and devastating disease, but now we know it doesn\u2019t spread easily and treatment is very effective\u201d with a combination of antibiotics, according to the CDC website<\/a>. \u201cHowever, if left untreated, the nerve damage can result in crippling of hands and feet, paralysis, and blindness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProlonged person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets is the most widely recognized route of transmission,\u201d the Emerging Infectious Diseases article says, noting \u201cthere is some support for the theory that international migration of persons with leprosy is a potential source\u201d of transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appearing on MSNBC on Tuesday, Dr. Kavita Patel, a primary care physician in Washington, D.C., acknowledged the increased concern over the disease but said \u201cthat does not mean you need to rush out of the scared of getting leprosy. If you have unusual symptoms in general \u2014 skin rashes, skin lesions \u2014 please go to your doctor. That\u2019s the bottom line here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases has reported that cases of leprosy are on the rise in Florida, noting that \u201ccentral Florida represents an endemic location for leprosy.\u201d \u201cTravel to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[5561],"class_list":["post-34180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-there-is-no-cdc-travel-advisory-for-leprosy-in-florida"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}