Yes, thankfully very difficult to contract and not from casual contact. It has to be prolonged exposure. From what that article says not all armadillos are infected either, only 15-20 percent, I believe.
I've had a discussion with a couple friends about this northward migration of armadillos in Illinois and other states a few months back. I've not seen any here in my area up near the I-70 corridor. There was social media heresay about a dead one seen locally and apparently they have been observed much farther north. I saw a dead one along I-57 somewhere north of Rend Lake a few years ago.
One of these guys is a former physician who was in military and private practice for maybe 30 years. He said that he remembered the question from medical school exams about leprosy and armadillos and the use of Dapsone to treat it, but in all his practice had never seen an actual case. He said that the bad thing about leprosy is that the bacteria are huge and tend to plug up capillaries that can lead to tissue loss.
Leprosy certainly isn't something anyone would want to get, but with modern medicine it isn't the same kind of disfiguring disease that it once was. I still don't think it would be wise for anyone except for accredited professionals to try to keep armadillos in captivity, though. All said, I guess we should feel grateful to armadillos because they are useful in the study of leprosy and treatments for it.
