Yaws update: Praise the Lord! The World Health Organization just recently held an Yaws eradication on Tanna Island. Yaws is a very contagious skin disease that creates skin ulcers, skin disfigurement and eventually disable the person if left untreated. After a lot of research and testing it was discovered it could be treated by one large dose of antibiotics. Look at the results of this recent outreach, over a two-week period, the mass drug campaign reached 96% of the population (almost 44 000 people). All age groups, except babies aged less than 6 months, were targeted regardless of whether they had symptoms. “Many of the children had been walking around with yaws sores for years. Within a week of receiving the antibiotic treatment, their sores had disappeared, says Ms Taleo. In the months following the campaign, just 6 cases of yaws were reported by the provinces main hospital, all of them in people who had arrived in Tafea after the campaign. After seeing the dramatic impact on neighbors and friends, several people who had refused treatment during the campaign came to health facilities asking to have the treatment after all. The campaign also played an important role in validating a newly developed rapid diagnostic test for yaws, in collaboration with the United States Centers for Diseases Control and an American biotechnology firm. We used the samples that we collected on Tanna to show that this simple test is reasonably reliable for diagnosis of yaws, says Dr Kool. This will help all countries to be more effective now with the detection of the disease.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 02:37:30 +0000
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