Targeted Treatment of Yaws With Household Contact Tracing: How Much Do We Miss?

ABSTRACT: Yaws is a disabling bacterial infection found primarily in warm and humid tropical areas. The World Health Organization strategy mandates an initial round of total community treatment (TCT) with single-dose azithromycin followed either by further TCT or active case-finding and treatment of cases and their contacts (the Morges strategy). We sought to investigate the effectiveness of the Morges strategy. We employed a stochastic household model to study the transmission of infection using data collected from a pre-TCT survey conducted in the Solomon Islands. We used this model to assess the proportion of asymptomatic infections that occurred in households without active cases. This analysis indicated that targeted treatment of cases and their household contacts would miss a large fraction of

SUBMITTER: Dyson L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5888927 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature