Buruli ulcer is an infectious disease prevalent in many tropical and subtropical regions caused by infection with Mycobacterium ulcerans. It is the third most frequent mycobacterial disease in humans worldwide, after tuberculosis (607948) and leprosy (246300). Lesions are most common on exposed parts of the body, especially the limbs. Buruli ulcer derives its name from a county in Uganda, East Africa, north of Kampala, where the disease was found in the late 1950s in hundreds of people living near marshes and riverine areas near the Nile River (Clancey et al., 1961; Barker, 1971). The disease was first described in the medical literature in 1948 in a report on patients in Australia (MacCallum et al., 1948). Patients have also been reported from tropical areas in Latin America and Asia (Stienstra et al., 2006; van der Werf et al., 2005). [from OMIM]
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