In ancient times, leprosy — also known as leprosy — was a major epidemic throughout Europe; new study confirms that small and harmless animal may have been a host of the disease
A new study published last Friday, 3, in the journal Current Biology, revealed that an animal quite common in medieval England served as a host for strains of Mycobacterium lepraebacteria that causes leprosy, in the Middle Ages: the red squirrel.
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The study was based on analysis of results from archaeological sites in Winchester. It is worth mentioning that leprosy is considered one of the oldest diseases recorded in all of human historyprevailing to this day in some areas of Asia, Africa and South America.
In the new study, according to Heritage Daily, researchers analyzed 25 human samples found in Winchester, and another 12 from squirrels from two medieval archaeological sites in the region. During the Middle Ages, the city was heavily linked to the animal skin trade, and also housed a hospital that treated people with leprosy.
According to Verena Schuenemann, co-author of the study, from the University of Basel: “With our genetic analysis, we were able to identify red squirrels as the first ancient animal host of leprosy.”
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As described in the study, medieval strains of red squirrels were more related to human strains in Winchestes, than to modern squirrel strains from England. This, in turn, suggests that there was an independent circulation of strains of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae.
Our findings highlight the importance of involving archaeological material, in particular animal remains, in studying the long-term zoonotic potential of this disease, as only a direct comparison of ancient human and animal strains allows reconstructions of potential transmission events throughout of time”, points out in the study the co-author Sarah Inskipfrom the University of Leicester, in the United Kingdom.
