Endemic treponematoses

Overview

Mass penicillin treatment campaigns from 1952 to 1969 were very successful in decreasing the prevalence of the endemic treponematoses (i.e., yaws, endemic syphilis (bejel), pinta) throughout the world. Yaws and endemic syphilis were eradicated from many areas and pinta approached the point of extraction. Small foci of active disease were still present in 1970 when these control programmes entered the surveillance phase.