3. Contact with a Leprosy Carrier
Contact with a leprosy carrier is hard to spot, although is one of the most common causes of leprosy in high-risk areas – especially if the exposure is repeated, or if the exposure is long-term. This means that you are exposed to the bacteria that causes leprosy directly – and you could start to show symptoms of leprosy yourself, or remain a carrier and potentially spread the condition to others.
Leprosy is a condition that can take as much as five years or up to show symptoms after exposure; this means that travel to any kind of high-risk area for leprosy where cases have been diagnosed or working in any high-risk environments where there are leprosy cases puts you at risk – and means that you should get tested even without symptoms showing up.
From exposure to symptoms can take a very long time, and not all carriers of the bacteria will show symptoms of having it themselves: This makes leprosy a difficult condition – and can lead to people seeing a higher rate of diagnosed cases if we aren’t careful now.