can’t seem to find what i had seen before with all those details after a quick search but some evidence for the touch vs eating bit is here: here.
Over 60% of the Brazilian people tested had positive antibodies for the bacteria, which is widely accepted as proof of exposure. This doesn’t mean that looking at or being around an Armadillo that carries leprosy will give it to a human. The researchers collecting the data from the region believed that the transmission occurred because the people there eat the Armadillos. Since they are abundant, people there hunt and kill them for food, unaware that the Armadillos carry leprosy.
for the life of me i can’t remember where i heard it but it was in the last few weeks and i heard not read it so maybe it was a yt video. sorry!
regardless the point is it’s pretty rare to catch and nowadays easily treatable and only a small fraction of armadillos have it and we gave it to them 400 yrs ago and in places where people do get infections from armadillos it’s in areas where they’re so common they’re regularly eaten. maybe i was mashing those facts together weirdly in my head.
20% isn’t the number i saw, it was 16%, and that is a small portion; it means if you encounter an armadillo there’s an 84% chance it doesn’t have it. combine that with 95% immunity and the debateable chance of contraction by simple touch when most sources say you need prolonged exposure to contract it even if you are one of the 5% vulnerable, and the long standing stigma and mistreatment against these creatures for it, and that just because i can’t find the exact thing i’m referencing doesn’t mean i’m factually wrong when a quick perusal of the shitty search results shows many sources disagreeing with each other on number infected as well as can touch transmit it, nah, i’m not being irresponsible saying you can pet the armadillos.
also your source proving me wrong is a single line in a florida source saying ‘there are reports you can get it with touch’. lmfao.