evidence: AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The report being referenced, published in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal, relied on data about leprosy cases that predated the COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccines can’t give people leprosy, a bacterial infection formally known as Hansen’s disease. Some researchers have explored whether the vaccines could prompt an immune response that causes complications or prompts the disease to surface in people already infected, though even that association isn’t clear. [...] "Vaccine safety surveillance systems at CDC have received no increased reports of leprosy after vaccination (including after COVID-19 vaccination)," the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office said in a statement to the AP. "These systems have also not identified any unusual or unexpected reporting patterns of leprosy after vaccination. No vaccine safety data to date support a potential link between COVID-19 vaccines and leprosy. CDC continues to recommend that everyone who is eligible should get vaccinated." Moreover, there’s no way COVID-19 vaccines could actually cause the underlying leprosy infection, said Dr. Jessica Fairley, an infectious disease doctor and Hansen’s disease expert at Emory University. Leprosy is caused by bacteria, she noted, and people live with it in their system for long periods before showing signs.