Alert study for leprosy among homeless people in large US cities

The expert wrote in The hill that infections that modern medicine believes could be eliminated could come back in communities with little medical access, like leprosy.

"Diseases are resurfacing in some parts of the United States, including Los Angeles County, which we have not commonly seen since the Middle Ages.", Siegel reports, specifically naming typhus and leprosy.

The diseases, both treatable with antibiotics, can cause irreversible disabilities, including blindness and skin lesions, and can become fatal if not properly diagnosed or managed. Poor communities such as the homeless are especially vulnerable.

"It's only a matter of time before leprosy can be established among the homeless population in an area like Los Angeles County.", Siegel writes, citing the fact that 75 percent of the city's 60,000 homeless people lack temporary shelter, hygiene and medical treatment.

The conditions of the homeless are a "perfect broth for a contagious disease."

In the United States there are occasional outbreaks of leprosy, but in the world there are more than 200,000 new cases annually, mostly in India, but an amount occurs in Central and South America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The leprosy that appears among the homeless in Los Angeles would be a safe recipe for instant public panic”Siegel indicates his essay on what is also known as Hanse's disease. "Leprosy involves a mycobacterium (tuberculosis is another mycobacterium) that is very difficult to transmit and very easy to treat with a cocktail of three antibiotics."