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.

Original Source

Yaws, an infectious disease caused by Treponema pallidum subspecies pertenue, affects mainly children in poor rural communities in tropical countries. This bacterium is transmitted by direct skin-to-skin, nonsexual contact and causes a chronic, relapsing disease that is characterized by highly contagious primary and secondary cutaneous lesions and by noncontagious tertiary destructive lesions of the bones. Cases are reported currently in 12 countries in Africa, Asia, and the western Pacific region, and 42 million people are estimated to be at risk for yaws.

The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), which affect the very poor, pose a major public health problem in the South-East Asia Region of the World Health Organization (WHO). Although more than a dozen NTDs affect the region, over the past five years four of them in particular