Tracking down an emerging disease
By Sid Perkins
From New Orleans, at the Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union
By examining geographic patterns of outbreaks of a disfiguring skin disease in tropical nations, scientists are finding tentative clues about how the ailment spreads.
Known as Buruli ulcer, the disease is caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans, a microbe from the same group that causes tuberculosis and leprosy. Early symptoms of the illness include nodules beneath the skin. If untreated, skin inflammation leads to open sores that can eat into bone, ultimately requiring amputation, says M. Eric Benbow, an ecologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing.