Leprosy is an infectious illness that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in your arms, legs, and other skin regions. Leprosy has been around since the beginning of time. People have been impacted by outbreaks on every continent.
However, leprosy, also known as Hanson's sickness, is not infectious. You can only get it if you come into close and repeated contact with untreated leprosy patients' nose and mouth droplets. Children are more prone than adults to contract leprosy.
According to the World Health Organization, around 208,000 individuals worldwide are infected with leprosy, the majority of whom live in Africa and Asia. Every year, about 100 persons in the United States are diagnosed with leprosy, primarily in the South, California, Hawaii, and other US territories.
Leprosy typically affects your skin and peripheral nerves, which are located outside your brain and spinal cord. Your eyes and the delicate tissue lining the inside of your nose may also be affected.
The most noticeable sign of leprosy is disfiguring skin sores, lumps, or bumps that do not go away after a few weeks or months. The skin sores are light in hue.
After coming into touch with the bacterium that causes leprosy, it generally takes 3 to 5 years for symptoms to develop. Some people might not have symptoms for 20 years. The incubation period is the time between coming into touch with the bacterium and the onset of symptoms. Because of the extended incubation period of leprosy, doctors have a difficult time determining when and where a person became infected.