{"id":361902,"date":"2026-08-03T21:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T21:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/361902\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T21:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T21:52:12","slug":"leprosy-cases-on-rise-in-fl-could-be-caused-by-common-animal-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/361902\/","title":{"rendered":"Leprosy Cases On Rise In FL, Could Be Caused By Common Animal, Experts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Norman Beatty, an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/news\/local\/2026\/07\/29\/florida-reports-17-leprosy-cases-so-far-this-year-doctors-warn-against-handling-armadillos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told News 6<\/a> that he\u2019s seen a rise in patients who have had contact with armadillos or areas where the animal had been. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have found patients coming who have either directly held an armadillo \u2026 or have also just manipulated the soil, the armadillos in their garden and burrows into their house, things like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He warned against touching the animal, alive or dead, or ingesting it. <\/p>\n<p>Beatty also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wusf.org\/health-news-florida\/2026-07-27\/armadillos-likely-behind-florida-increasing-leprosy-cases-but-doctors-say-dont-worry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told WUSF<\/a> that there could be even more unconfirmed cases. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a clinic here in Gainesville focused on leprosy, and we are identifying new cases each month that have otherwise been either misdiagnosed or they&#8217;ve been having signs and symptoms for years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Norman Beatty, an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, told News 6 that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-361902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}