Posted on 02/14/2012 12:17:01 AM PST by neverdem
Yaws, a disease that penicillin nearly eradicated 40 years ago, has been re-emerging in rural tropical Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands — but a new study has shown that a modern drug is as effective against the disease as penicillin was.
Yaws is a close relative of syphilis — both are caused by a spirochete bacterium, though syphilis is usually transmitted by sex and starts as a genital sore, while yaws is passed by skin contact with its usually painless skin sores. They resemble raspberries, and one name for the disease is “framboise,” French for raspberry. It is commonly passed between children sharing beds.
Left untreated, the bacteria can spread to the bones and cartilage, often causing swelling, pain and facial disfiguration...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Oral azithromycin for treatment of yaws
Treponema pallidum subsp pertenue
Does anybody want me to give them a raspberry?
Now that question takes on a whole new meaning.
You are seeing a lot of old diseases and some new ones coming from these countries. Some of these old diseases are resistant to conventional treatment.
Firesign Theater, “Beat the Reaper”. This esoteric reference is the one and only time I have ever heard of this disease.
I see "paving the way" for another wealth transfer - the U.S. providing "free" condoms to all of Africa.
0bama not satisfied to be the food stamp pResident, but the condom president as well. What a joke. On us.
Oh! The horrors of colonialism!
"A study of 250 children on Lihir Island in Papua New Guinea, published last month in The Lancet, showed that one pill of azithromycin — sold in the United States as Zithromax — was just as good as a penicillin shot at curing yaws.
"A Lancet editorial called it the most important yaws discovery in 50 years, and 'could facilitate the elimination of this ancient scourge.'”
More of this Western Civilization nonsense!
All civilizations are equal!
Yaws, meet The Black Death and Consumption (TB), and welcome to America. And say hello to Smallpox.
I’ve been reading an explorer’s journal about central Australia. Yaws was a native (”endemic”) disease there.
Notice the end paragraph crack about how colonial powers in the fifties ended the disease using penicillin. And of course shared needle use MAY have led to hep C and AIDS.
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