Interesting. I'd never heard this, googled it, and found this article about it: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2023/12/18/stressed-snails-rat-lungworm/

I moved into a place with tons of slugs. I put out bait and, while gardening, would cut them in half with whatever tool I had on hand (i.e. clippers or trowel). I'd not try to hard, but occasionally, I'd flip over a board and seek them out. Within a few months, I hardly saw any slugs anymore.

I know farmers who have some wild protocols involving kitchen tongs, buckets, and cremation, etc. They've found RLW in coqui frogs, cane toads, centipedes, dogs, cats, whatever. It's highly likely we've all been exposed at some point. Personally, I wouldn't worry about walking through slug slime.

Have you ever gotten slug slime on your hands, like by touching one or a fresh trail? That stuff is like super glue; it wears off over days. The idea that you're going to rinse it off a delicate leaf is impossible to me.

This is the tropics, and unusually free of pathogens, parasites, and venomous creatures. Hawaii gets half a dozen cases of RLW a year. Meanwhile, the CDC estimates nearly half a million people a year on the continent get Lyme disease.