Photo: PTI

Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss and Minister of State Panabaka Lakshmi release a document on Yaws in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: Yaws, a chronic infectious disease, has been eliminated from India. However, it will be another two years before the disease is eradicated, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said here on Tuesday.

(Elimination means no case has been reported for the past three years. If there is no incidence for two more years, then it will mean the disease is eradicated.) Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones and joints prevalent among children in the age group 6-15 in remote tribal areas. The disease was noticed in the 49 tribal districts of 10 States, particularly Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

Dr. Ramadoss said that last year India eliminated leprosy. It was to be polio next year though there was a spurt in cases. Kala-azar would be eliminated in 2008. The country had already put in place the World Bank-funded, Rs. 400-crore Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) that would help in tracking infectious diseases in even the remotest parts within 5-6 hours with advanced information technology networking, he said. Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Panabaka Lakshmi said eradication of poverty and combating major diseases figured in Millennium Development Goals, which form a blueprint agreed to by all countries.

Yaws afflicted the tribal population, resulting in disability and consequent poverty. By eliminating yaws, India made further progress in achieving these goals, she pointed out.

India took up the Yaws Eradication Programme (YEP) in 1996-97 and asked the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) to implement it in the areas where health services were needed the most. Yaws can be eradicated by administering a single penicillin injection to the infected persons, their family members, neighbours and school contacts.

The project was first taken up in Koraput district of Orissa in 1996-97 and extended to all endemic districts in 1999. The affected States were Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

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