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Leprosy has been hiding out in red squirrels in Great Britain and Ireland, though the painful and disfiguring disease hasn't been transmitted between humans there for several centuries.
The endangered bushy-tailed rodents (Sciurus vulgaris) have tested positive for leprosy-causing bacteria in several locations around the British Isles, researchers report November 11 in Science.
"It goes to show that once a disease has become extinct in humans, it could still exist in the environment if there was a suitable reservoir," says study coauthor Stewart Cole, director of the Global Health Institute at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. In this case, squirrels seem to be ideal incubators for leprosy bacteria.
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British Red Squirrels Serve as Leprosy Reservoir
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Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected.
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(Score: 5, Funny) by edIII on Monday November 14 2016, @11:44PM
They don't have leprosy, but are storing it like little furry Machiavellian assholes to use later.
The squirrels in the UK are operating their own bio-weapons program dude! I'm telling ya, they're organized.
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