Hansen’s disease is widely known as leprosy and is a skin disorder that tends to affect children more than adults.  While most people vision horrible facial distortion with leprosy, there are varying degrees of outbreaks.  While medical technology is improving, there are some questions that are still unanswered in how leprosy is spread. 

Most doctors assume that leprosy is spread through the nasal passage, or from broken skin.  Many people who are all in the same household or those who have continuous contact with the infected tend to have a higher rate of contracting the disease.  One of the bad news with leprosy is that it can take a very long time before symptoms are present. 

Symptoms of leprosy are dependant upon which leprosy the patient has.  There is the tuberculoid leprosy, which causes well-defined lesions on the face, which are generally numb.  The other form, lepromatous leprosy has symptoms that include a chronically stuffy nose that no medication will clear up.  As well as there are many skin lesions and modules on both sides of the body that are very visible. 

Symptoms will generally not appear until as much as four years after tuberculoid leprosy is contracted.  For lepromatous leprosy, it can take as much as either years before symptoms appear.  Once treatment begins to treat leprosy it generally is approximately three months before the patient is no longer contagious and is not able to infect others. 

It is highly recommended that if you come into direct contact with a person who has leprosy that you receive an annual check up for at least 5 years from the date of last contact. This ensures that you detect the symptom’s early and ensure quick treatment when and if the symptom’s do appear it helps reduce the effects and length of the illness.  There is no real way to prevent leprosy so the early detection is so very important. 

While it is also important to avoid contact with a person who has leprosy that is still contagious, those who are being actively treated and are past the approximate 3 month mark in treatment are no longer much danger to spread the disease.  While leprosy is, a very scary disease because of the appearance problems that it causes for patients it is almost equally scary for those who come into contact with a leprosy patient.  It is very important to let your doctor know if you come into contact with a contagious person who has leprosy so that they can closely monitor for symptoms.