Southern California child tests positive for leprosy

Pipette tips discharging diluted human blood into a 96 well tissue culture plate for an experiment at a research laboratory (Dlumen)

LOS ANGELES – A Southern California elementary school student has been found to have leprosy, public health officials said Thursday, though they emphasize that the student's school and community remain safe.

Two children from Indian Hills Elementary School in Jurupa Valley had initially been diagnosed by a local doctor with the condition known medically as Hansen's disease, Riverside County health officials said. But this week they received results from the National Hansen's Disease Laboratory Research Program in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and they showed that only one of the children had tested positive.

Public health officials emphasize that it is incredibly difficult to contract leprosy and that there is no danger to the child's classmates. The classrooms had been sanitized since the initial diagnoses.

"It is incredibly difficult to contract leprosy," said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County's public health officer. "The school was safe before this case arose and it still is."

The U.S. sees only about 150 leprosy cases occur each year, and over 95 percent of the population is naturally immune to it.

Despite its reputation as an incredibly infectious plague that makes sufferers shed body parts, the disease can only be passed through prolonged contact, and is fairly easily treated with antibiotics.

It is not spread through short-term contact like handshakes or even sexual intercourse.

Those most at risk are family members who are in constant contact with an untreated person, and by travelers to places such as India, Brazil and Angola where it's more common.

Health and school officials will say nothing about how the child contracted the disease, or about the identity of either child who was tested.

"The only way to protect the two students is for nobody to know who they are," district Superintendent Elliott Duchon told the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

The school district sent an email to parents informing them of the diagnosis, and Duchon was at the school on Thursday afternoon to answer questions from concerned parents.

Leprosy remains a problem in tropical hot spots of the world with some 250,000 new infections reported each year. Similar to tuberculosis, it can stay dormant for years before attacking the skin and nerves.

The disease has long been misunderstood, with false stories of fingers and toes falling off adding to the stigma. Fear led some countries to quarantine people.

Antibiotics typically kill the bacteria within days and make it non-contagious. It usually takes a year or two to fully clear the germ from the body.

If left untreated, it can cause severe nerve damage, deformity and disability.