Leprosy is an infectious disease that has generated discrimination towards those who have suffered it throughout human history, because it causes deformities in the face and extremities. However, this disease is of low contagiousness, 95% of the people who are in contact with a patient will never be infected; It takes many years of cohabitation with a patient to acquire it, or even the simple fact of living in the same room with several people could generate it due to the load of bacilli and bacteria in the environment, which is why it has been directly related to hospital environments. extreme poverty. It is also known as Hansen’s disease, in honor of the Norwegian Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen who, in 1873, discovered this mycobacterium or also called mycobacterium leprae. In 2005 this disease was eliminated in Mexico. Finally in 2008, the UN Human Rights Committee resolved to eliminate stigma and discrimination against people affected by leprosy.
With information from Dr. Rodolfo Acuña Soto, Professor of the Department of Microbiology and Parasitology of the Faculty of Medicine
– Vélez A. Hernán, Rojas M. William, Borrero R. Jaime, Restrepo M. Jorge, Fundamentals of Medicine, Dermatology, 2009, 7th edition, Medellín, Colombia: Corporation for Biological Research.
– Diseases in history: Leprosy in the world, Álvarez C. Rafael, vol. 53, No. 006 (2010), Magazine of the Faculty of Medicine, UNAM.
