Leprosy originated in Africa or Near East and was spread by human migrations

Maggie Fox:

Leprosy, a disease widely believed to have been spread out of India, in fact appears to have originated in Africa or the Near East, scientists said on Thursday.

"The disease seems to have originated in Eastern Africa or the Near East and spread with successive human migrations," researchers reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

This is not what historians had believed.

"Leprosy is believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent and to have been introduced into Europe by Greek soldiers returning from the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great. From Greece, the disease is thought to have spread around the Mediterranean basin, with the Romans introducing leprosy into the Western part of Europe," the researchers wrote.

In fact, the new study suggests that until Europeans explored and conquered much of the world, the disease that carries perhaps more stigma than any other was fairly contained, they said.

A careful genetic analysis of the bacteria that causes the disease, which attacks the nerves and skin, suggests that colonial-era explorers and slave traders spread leprosy across the rest of Africa and into the Americas in relatively recent times.

"Europeans or North Africans introduced leprosy into West Africa and the Americas within the past 500 years," the researchers wrote.

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