Lepra Animal
The relationship of this natural disease with human infection is yet to be established.
Lepra animal. It is an intracellular pleomorphic acid fast pathogenic bacterium. 2 armadillo 3 monkey of west africa or chimpanzee which were found to suffer from natural disease leprosy. They can be cultivated in experimental animals.
Besides humans the only animals known to develop leprosy in nature are new world armadillos and african primates. Httpsdefleppardlnktotssfya listen to all the hits. Antigenic structure of mycobacterium leprae.
Leprae is an aerobic bacillus rod shaped bacterium with parallel sides and round ends surrounded by the characteristic waxy coating unique to mycobacteria. A study of wild nine banded armadillos dasypus novemcinctus and people living with leprosy in the southern united states found that the armadillos and humans were infected with a nearly identical strain of the leprosy bacillus. Leprae has never been successfully grown in artificial media but can be propagated in the mouse footpad and the nine banded armadillo.
In size and shape it closely resembles mycobacterium tuberculosis. The organism has a long doubling time of 13 days in the mouse footpad selectively invades peripheral nerves and grows preferentially at temperatures of 33350c.