“Florida, USA, has witnessed an increased incidence of leprosy cases lacking traditional risk factors. Those trends, in addition, to decreasing diagnoses in foreign-born persons, contribute to rising evidence that leprosy has become endemic in the southeastern United States,” the CDC said in a statement.
Travel to Florida should be considered when conducting leprosy contact tracing in any state, it added.
The CDC pointed out that the number of cases has more than doubled in the region over the last decade. In 2020, when almost 160 cases were reported in the entire country, Florida was among the top reporting states, it added.
A new case has been registered in a 54-year-old man who denied any foreign or domestic travel or contact with people from leprosy-endemic countries, CDC said.
“Fite stains revealed acid-fast bacilli within histiocytes and cutaneous nerve twigs, a pathognomonic finding of leprosy,” the statement noted.
CDC stressed that leprosy has been “historically uncommon” in the US, adding that the incidence peak happened in 1983. A “drastic reduction” in the number of cases per year occurred between the 1980s and 2000, it added.