laboratory rats. Over the following decades, more cases were described in Africa. A particularly high prevalence in Uganda's Buruli County led to the disease becoming more widely known as "Buruli ulcer". In 1998, the World Health Organization started the Global Buruli Ulcer Initiative with the aim of coordinating global efforts to control the disease. This was followed in 2004 by World Health Organization Resolution WHA57.1 calling upon member countries to support the Global Buruli Ulcer Initiative and increase research on Buruli ulcer diagnostics and treatment. Interest in Buruli ulcer has been encouraged by its branding as a "neglected tropical disease", first in a 2005 PLOS Medicine article, and later by both the World Health Organization and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. From the time the disease was described, Buruli ulcer was treated with surgery to remove all affected tissue, followed by prolonged wound care. This treatment regimen was expensive, sometimes disfiguring, and often ineffective, ulcers recurring in up to a third of cases. Treatment dramatically improved in 2004, when the World Health Organization recommended an eight-week course of daily oral rifampicin and injected streptomycin. The introduction of antibiotics reduced the rate of ulcer recurrence to fewer than 2% of cases. However, streptomycin can be toxic to the ears and kidneys, and administering daily injections is challenging in low-resource settings. In 2017, the World Health Organization updated its recommendation to replace streptomycin with the oral antibiotic clarithromycin. Research Buruli ulcer has been the subject of scientific research since the description of M. ulcerans in 1948, and the demonstration that the bacteria could cause ulcers in laboratory animals. While several animals are susceptible to M. ulcerans ulcers, mice (particularly BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice) are most commonly used to model Buruli ulcer in modern laboratories. Since M. ulcerans can only grow in relatively cool temperatures, mice are typically infected in furless parts of the body: the ear, tail, or footpad. After injection into the mouse, bacteria double every three to four days, and the first signs of skin disease appear after three to four weeks. This mouse model of Buruli ulcer has primarily been used to test antibiotics. The antibiotic combinations, dose frequencies, and treatment durations currently in use were first tested in laboratory-infected mice. Some vaccine platforms have been tested in M. ulcerans-infected mice, mostly based on the Mycobacterium bovis strain used in the BCG vaccine. The BCG vaccine and versions of the