IL26 and leprosy: This supports previous studies which found that the autophagy inhibiting cytokine IL-10 is predominant in multibacillary leprosy compared to high levels of IL-26, IFN-γ, and TNF-α, autophagy inducing cytokines, found during paucibacillary tuberculoid leprosy (Yamamura, 1992; Sieling and Modlin, 1994; Nath, 2016; Dang et al., 2019).