The Eradication of Yaws - and its unsung hero.

Vivien Thomas: master craftsman, gifted teacher, and unsung hero.

Alice M. Horowitz, Ph.D., oral health change agent: an unsung hero.

Yaws: A Second (and Maybe Last?) Chance for Eradication

Some diseases are neglected; others are simply forgotten. Yaws belongs to the second group. One of the first diseases to be targeted for eradication on a global scale, yaws almost disappeared, thanks to a massive treatment program started in the 1950s that eliminated it from many endemic areas. Then something went wrong. The combat line somehow broke down in several points, people focused on ot...

Eradication of Yaws: Historical Efforts and Achieving WHO's 2020 Target

BACKGROUND Yaws, one of the 17 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), is targeted for eradication by 2020 in resolution WHA66.12 of the World Health Assembly (2013) and the WHO roadmap on NTDs (2012). The disease frequently affects children who live in poor socioeconomic conditions. Between 1952 and 1964, WHO and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) led a global eradication campaign using i...

Mathematical Modeling of Programmatic Requirements for Yaws Eradication

Yaws is targeted for eradication by 2020. The mainstay of the eradication strategy is mass treatment followed by case finding. Modeling has been used to inform programmatic requirements for other neglected tropical diseases and could provide insights into yaws eradication. We developed a model of yaws transmission varying the coverage and number of rounds of treatment. The estimated number of c...