Advances in the Treatment of Yaws

Abstract

Yaws is one of the three endemic treponematoses and is recognised by the World Health Organization as a neglected tropical disease. Yaws is currently reported in 15 countries in the Pacific, South-East Asia, West and Central Africa, predominantly affects children, and results in destructive lesions of the skin and soft tissues. For most of the twentieth century penicillin-based treatment was the standard of care and resistance to penicillin has still not been described. Recently, oral azithromycin has been shown to be an effective treatment for yaws, facilitating renewed yaws eradication efforts. Resistance to azithromycin is an emerging threat and close surveillance will be required as yaws eradication efforts are scaled up globally.

Conformity of yaws clinical features to combined rapid diagnostic test in children aged 2-15 years in an endemic area

“…We classified children as "confirmed yaws" if the test was reactive for both treponemal (T1) and non-treponemal (T2) lines and as "not yaws" if the test was reactive only for either T1 or T2 line and if the test was not reactive to both. Children diagnosed with an active yaws infection were treated with azithromycin [11].…”