Autochthonous leprosy in Europe: a case report and literature review

Quentin Beauvillain (1) , Catherine Lok (1) , Camille Joachim , Farida Hamdad (1) , Eva Lafabregue (1) , Christophe Attencourt (1, 2) , Henri Sevestre (1, 3) , Guillaume Chaby (4)

1 CHU Amiens-Picardie
2 CHIMERE - CHirurgie, IMagerie et REgénération tissulaire de l’extrémité céphalique - Caractérisation morphologique et fonctionnelle - UR UPJV 7516
3 LPCM - Laboratoire de Physiologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire - UR UPJV 4667
4 Service de dermatologie [CHU d'Amiens-Picardie]

Leprosy is currently uncommon in Europe: the diagnosed cases are almost all imported from endemic areas. We report on an autochthonous case of borderline lepromatous leprosy in a 71-year-old Portuguese woman. The case was complicated by a reversal reaction and then by erythema nodosum leprosum. A literature review identified 18 reported cases of European autochthonous leprosy since 20 0 0; all but one were observed in Mediterranean countries. Therefore, active clusters of leprosy persist in Europe, particularly in Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Italy. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Quentin Beauvillain, Catherine Lok, Camille Joachim, Farida Hamdad, Eva Lafabregue, et al.. Autochthonous leprosy in Europe: a case report and literature review. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2021, 110, pp.111-113. ⟨10.1016/j.ijid.2021.07.023⟩. ⟨hal-03598989⟩