The Treponematoses as a World Problem

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Abstract
Guthe presented at the meeting of the International Union against the Venereal Disease and the Treponematoses (IUVDT) a review of the similarities of and differences between syphilis, yaws and pinta and the progress made against these diseases by the World Health Organization. Endemic syphilis, which occurs in many scattered parts of the world, is usually transmitted to children 2 to 10 years of age by other children, may pass from child to parent, and is a rural familial disease found in underdeveloped communities. Congenital infection occurs rarely. Yaws, the most widespread of the treponematoses, is similar epidemiologically to endemic syphilis. Ten years ago there were some fifty million cases of yaws among two hundred million people at risk in tropical areas. By the end of 1958, some seventy million had been examined for yaws in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Western Pacific. About thirty million people were treated in these campaigns. Tables present the virtual or complete eradication of yaws and endemic syphilis following mass examination and treatment campaign in many areas. Epidemologic treatment of latent cases and of contacts is essential. Guthe cites as goals for the future fundamental work concerning the biology of the treponeme in relation to its host and to the environment, serologic differentiation between strains of treponemes causing different treponematoses, studies of the adaptation and mutation pattern of pathogenic treponemes under the influence of antibiotics and radioactivity, and epidemiologic studies of the mechanism of the transfer of yaws and of endemic syphilis.

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