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In a peer-reviewed paper published last week, U.K. researchers said they found a link between the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) COVID-19 and vaccine leprosy adverse events in people who previously were diagnosed with the condition.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) meanwhile issued a case report of leprosy in central Florida this month, citing “rising evidence that leprosy has become endemic in the southeastern United States.” The agency, however, did not issue a travel warning for the state.
According to the CDC, cases of leprosy more than doubled in Florida over the last decade.
Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease that primarily affects the skin and peripheral nervous system. Also known as Hansen’s disease, leprosy is caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae. Symptoms include hallmark lesions, numbness, eye problems, and paralysis in the hands and feet.
Evidence of mRNA vaccine correlation
In the U.K. study, researchers analyzed patient records of 52 individuals who were diagnosed with leprosy and attended the leprosy clinic at the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases in 2021.
The researchers examined whether the patients — 98% of whom received the COVID-19 jab — developed leprosy or experienced a new leprosy reaction within the 12 weeks following the COVID-19 vaccine.
The researchers defined a leprosy adverse event as either a) new onset of leprosy or leprosy reaction, and/or neuritis (nerve inflammation), within 12 weeks following a COVID-19 vaccine, or b) a leprosy reaction and/or neuritis in patients who had not received treatment for a leprosy reaction and/or neuritis within 12 weeks.
Findings showed two of the 52 individuals had a leprosy adverse event following the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The researchers also identified 14 individuals with leprosy adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines in six published reports from both leprosy endemic and non-endemic settings.
Ten of the 14 individuals experienced a leprosy adverse event after the first vaccination, three after the second and one after the third vaccine.
The findings “should not be considered a contraindication to vaccination,” the researchers concluded, but added, “It is important for clinicians to be aware of the potential leprosy adverse events associated with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.”
In 2022, two researchers from India studied four patients with Hansen’s disease whose leprosy symptoms worsened after being administered the COVID-19 vaccine at a leprosy care center in India.
The patients had either received the AstraZeneca or Covaxin shot. Barring vaccination, there were no identifiable triggers for the reactions in the four cases analyzed.
The researchers concluded:
“The sheer versatility of clinical presentation of leprosy reactions following COVID-19 vaccination warrants further large-scale molecular studies including assays of potential laboratory inflammatory markers to establish the exact pathogenesis of vaccine-related adverse effects.”
Dr. Robert W. Malone said he believes the sudden reporting on leprosy is “fearporn,” but added, “There is no question that being immunosuppressed is a key factor to contracting leprosy.”
He added:
“Therefore, as mRNA inoculations cause immunosuppression, it has been hypothesized that in some individuals this could pose a higher risk of contracting the disease after vaccination.”
A search for “leprosy” associated with COVID-19 vaccination in OpenVAERS, a database derived from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, yielded 15 reports describing leprosy or leprosy-like symptoms — including blisters, rashes and eye pain — among patients who received either the Pfizer (13 patients) or Moderna (2 patients) vaccines.
Recent upticks in leprosy cases in Florida, India
According to the CDC, leprosy primarily is transmitted when an infected person coughs or sneezes and a healthy person breathes in the droplets containing the Mycobacterium leprae. In the southern U.S., some armadillos are naturally infected with Mycobacterium leprae.
However, the CDC states that “most people who come into contact with armadillos are unlikely to get Hansen’s disease.”
Dr. Jessica K. Fairley, director of Emory Hansen’s Disease Program in Atlanta, told Fox News:
“Most people are not susceptible to the infection and in general, it is very hard to get even when exposed to individuals with the infection.”
According to the CDC, leprosy is very rare in the U.S., with fewer than 200 cases reported per year and most contracting it in a country where it is more common.
Incidence peaked in the U.S. around 1983. By 2000, almost all cases had disappeared, according to the CDC report. In 2015, leprosy started making headlines in Florida, now deemed by the CDC an “endemic location” for the disease.
India — a country that accounts for more than half of the world’s leprosy cases — has also seen a significant uptick in its number of people with the disease, reporting an 87% increase between 2021 and 2022.
From 2022 to 2023, the number of new leprosy cases surged to 626, the highest since 2013-14, when 627 cases were reported.
Florida’s leprosy cases ‘lack traditional risk factors’
The CDC said contact tracing revealed no “associated risk factors, including travel, zoonotic [transmitted between animals and humans] exposure, occupational association, or personal contacts” among the patients in Florida.
Dr. Linda Adams, chief of the laboratory research branch at the National Hansen’s Disease Program, told CNN:
“We do see cases that we cannot explain. There’s been no foreign travel, for example, or no contact with armadillos.”
CDC researchers concluded that the absence of traditional risk factors, coupled with the high percentage of Florida residents (including leprosy patients) who spend a lot of time outdoors, “supports the investigation into environmental reservoirs as a potential source of transmission.”
