Yaws: Training of health workers at national and districts levels on skin-NTDs

Yaws is targeted for eradication by WHO in the 2021-2030 NTD Roadmap. It is therefore crucial to know how to identify cases, design and implement activities to eradicate the disease at the community level.

Photo credit: Camila G. Beiras

Course information

In the context of integration of skin NTDs it is vital to learn to recognize a disease targeted for eradication. At the individual level yaws lesions may mimic other skin diseases. At the community level, it is key to know how to design and implement the total community treatment strategy and monitor its impact. This course aims at providing health workers with the basic knowledge to understand the epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, impact, eradication strategy and reporting of yaws.

Learning objectives: By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• Understand epidemiology of yaws at national and district level
• Describe the clinical aspects of yaws
• Understand how the diagnosis is made
• Explain what the global eradication strategy is
• List how the recording and reporting is done

Course duration: Approximately 2 hours

Certificates: A Record of Achievement certificate will be available to participants who score at least 80% in the final assessment. Participants who receive a Record of Achievement can also download an Open Badge for this course. Click here to learn how.

Course contents

• Module 1: Introduction, epidemiology. psychosocial and economic impact:

  This introductory module gives an overview of Neglected Tropical Diseases, skin-NTDs, and treponemal infections. By the end of this module, you should be able to: explain what the causative organism is, describe the transmission cycle, explain the risk factors, describe the geographical distribution (global, national and district), describe the age and gender distribution, and understand the psychosocial and economic impact.

• Module 2: Clinical diagnosis and diagnostic tests:

  By the end of this module, you should be able to: describe the clinical clues to diagnose yaws, list the main conditions for differential diagnosis, and understand how and when to use the different diagnostic tests and interpret the results.

• Module 3: Treatment, adverse events and referrals:

  By the end of this module, you should be able to: explain how treatment is done and its adverse events, describe the treatment outcome, list the possible complications, and understand when patients should be referred.

• Module 4: Implementation and impact of public health interventions:

  By the end of this module, you should be able to: list the objectives of yaws eradication, understand how the eradication strategy is implemented, and describe the activities related to achieve the total community treatment.

• Module 5: Surveillance and interventions:

  By the end of this module, you should be able to: understand how to assess the interruption of transmission, list the indicators used for surveillance and total community treatment, and describe the registers to record data.