11 May 2018
Red squirrels may have brought
leprosy to Britain more than 1,000 years ago, scientists have said.
Swiss researchers said DNA taken
from a fifth-century victim of the disease in Essex revealed the same strain of
leprosy carried by red squirrels today.
The discovery supports the theory
that the rodents, once prized for their meat and fur, played a role in the
spread of the disease throughout medieval Europe.
Grey squirrels were not
introduced to the UK until the 19th Century.
Scientists at the University of
Zurich took samples of leprosy DNA from 90 Europeans with skeletal deformations
characteristic of the disease from AD400 to AD1,400.
From the fragments they
reconstructed 10 new genomes - complete genetic codes - of medieval Mycobacterium leprae, the bug that
causes leprosy.
One was from Great Chesterford,
Essex, and dated to between AD415 and AD545. It was this leprosy genome, the
oldest yet constructed, that contained the red squirrel clue.
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