How to Prevent Yaws

Yaws is an infection caused by the Treponema pertenue bacterium, which is found primarily on the skin of infected individuals. Transmission is usually contracted through direct contact. It is contagious and primarily occurs in children younger than 15 years, and especially to those in the 6- to 10-year range. Yaws is common in tropical areas among poor rural populations with poor sanitation and overcrowding. The following steps will show how to prevent yaws.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Limit the spread of yaws by interrupting its transmission with early diagnosis and treatment. No vaccine is available for yaws.
2. Receive antibiotics as a prophylactic measure if you come in contact with someone who has yaws. Benzathine penicillin and penicillin G are the drugs of choice. Penicillin can cause hypersensitivity reactions in some persons.
3. Use a condom during sexual intercourse to help prevent infection from yaws.
4. Administer a single shot of the long-lasting Benzathine penicillin to an entire population. This antibiotic is cheap, widely available and effective. Treponema pertenue lives only in humans; only a few localized areas of infection remain.
5. Restore the vertical programs to eradicate yaws that were dismantled in the 1970s. Move the treatment of yaws from the primary health care system back to specialized programs. Expend the resources needed for the global elimination of yaws. This would require a mass campaign with mobile teams formed to treat tens of millions of people in a short period.