What is Lepra bacillus?
What is Lepra bacillus?
Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, an acid-fast, rod-shaped bacillus. The disease mainly affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes. Leprosy is curable and treatment in the early stages can prevent disability.
What is the special stain for Lepra bacilli?
Fite acid-fast stain for leprosy: Demonstrates the acid-fast organism Mycobacterium leprae by staining the cell walls a bright red. Gram stain/Brown and Brenn stain: Stains both cocci and bacilli and differentiates between gram-positive bacteria (purple) and gram-negative bacteria (reddish-pink).
What does Mycobacterium leprae look like?
M. leprae is an intracellular, pleomorphic, acid-fast, pathogenic bacterium. It is an aerobic bacillus (rod-shaped bacterium) with parallel sides and round ends, surrounded by the characteristic waxy coating unique to mycobacteria. In size and shape, it closely resembles Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
What is leprosy in microbiology?
Leprosy (also known Hansen’s disease) is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis that involves the skin and peripheral nerves. M. leprae and M. lepromatosis comprise “Mycobacterium leprae complex” [1].
What is Lepromin test?
The lepromin skin test is used to determine what type of leprosy a person has. Leprosy is caused by the organism Mycobacterium leprae. The leprosy test involves injection of an antigen just under the skin to determine if your body has a current or recent leprosy infection.
What color does Mycobacterium stain?
red
Because of the nature of their cell wall, acid-fast bacteria stain red after acid-fast staining. The genus Mycobacterium and the genus Nocardia are among the few bacteria possessing an acid-fast cell wall.
What is the shape of Mycobacterium tuberculosis?
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a rod-shaped bacterium that is responsible for around 10 million new infections and 1.4 million deaths per year (Pai et al., 2016).
What color is Mycobacterium leprae?
The acid-fast bacteria appear red; other structures take on blue-green color of the counterstain.
How can you distinguish Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae?
Major differences among these two bacteria were seen regarding the cell size and thickness of the PG layer. M. leprae had a smaller cell size and a thinner PG layer than M. tuberculosis.
What are the three types of leprosy?
The first system recognizes three types of Hansen’s disease: tuberculoid, lepromatous, and borderline. A person’s immune response to the disease determines which of these types of Hansen’s disease they have: In tuberculoid Hansen’s disease, the immune response is good.
What are Lepra reactions?
Lepra reactions are inflammatory reactions occurring in leprosy, due to circulating immune complexes, vasculitis, or T-cell reaction which may be induced by treatment.