Child at Riverside County school tests positive for leprosy

A student at a Riverside County elementary school has been found to have leprosy, public health officials said Thursday, though they emphasize that the school and community remain safe.

A doctor had initially diagnosed two children from Indian Hills Elementary School in Jurupa Valley with the condition known medically as Hansen’s disease, Riverside County health officials said. But this week they received results from the National Hansen’s Disease Laboratory Research Program in Baton Rouge, La., that showed only one of the children had tested positive.

Public health officials emphasized that leprosy is not easily transmitted and that there is no danger to the child’s classmates. The classrooms have been sanitized since the initial diagnoses.

“It is incredibly difficult to contract leprosy,” said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County’s public health officer. “The school was safe before this case arose, and it still is.”

The U.S. sees only about 150 leprosy cases each year, and more than 95% of the population is naturally immune to it.

Despite its reputation as an incredibly infectious plague that makes sufferers shed body parts, the disease can be passed only through prolonged contact and is fairly easily treated with antibiotics.

It is not spread through short-term contact such as handshakes or even sexual intercourse.

Those most at risk are family members who are in constant contact with an untreated person, and travelers to places such as India, Brazil and Angola, where the disease is more common.

Health and school officials will say nothing about how the child contracted the disease or the identities of either child tested.

“The only way to protect the two students is for nobody to know who they are,” district Supt. Elliott Duchon told the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

The school district sent an email to parents informing them of the diagnosis, and Duchon was at the school Thursday afternoon to answer questions from parents.

Leprosy remains a problem in tropical hot spots of the world, with some 250,000 new infections reported each year. Similar to tuberculosis, it can stay dormant for years before attacking the skin and nerves.

The disease has long been misunderstood, with false stories of fingers and toes falling off adding to the stigma. Fear led some countries to quarantine people.

Antibiotics typically kill the bacteria within days and make it noncontagious. It usually takes a year or two to fully clear the germ from the body.

If left untreated, it can cause severe nerve damage, deformity and disability.

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