Ancient DNA reveals leprosy hit the Americas long before colonization

Leprosy’s communicative stretches from 5,000-year-old skeletons successful Eurasia to a startling 4,000-year-old lawsuit successful Chile, revealing that the uncommon strain Mycobacterium lepromatosis haunted the Americas millennia earlier Europeans arrived. Armed with cutting-edge ancient-DNA sleuthing, scientists person pieced unneurotic remarkably well-preserved genomes that situation the thought of leprosy arsenic purely a assemblage import and hint that the illness whitethorn person homegrown American roots awaiting confirmation by aboriginal finds.