Pills offer new hope in fight against yaws

2012-01-16 14:25

分享到

 

Pills offer new hope in fight against yaws

Scientists have found that a medicine taken in pill form is just as effective in treating the neglected tropical diseaseyaws as the usual treatment, a shot ofpenicillin.

The easier-to-use therapy raises new hope for the eradication of the disease.

Yaws is a disease affecting mostly poor children in the tropics. It eats away at skin,cartilage, and bone, affecting an estimated half-million youngsters in Africa, Asia, and South America.

The standard treatment is penicillin, which can be very effective, and an international program nearly eradicated the disease in the 1950s and '60s. But in recent years yaws has reemerged, in part because many infected children don't show any symptoms, and so don't get penicillin.

"For every one case of active yaws that we see, the estimates are that there's up to eight cases of children infected with the yaws organism who don't present because they don't have symptoms at the time. And so for that reason, just treating active cases when they come up will never eliminate the disease." Russell Hays is a doctor at the remote Lihir Medical Center in Papua New Guinea.

Hays and his colleagues wanted to see if another antibiotic would work as well against yaws, one that would be easier to use in a mass-treatment program.

While penicillin is effective, it also has its downsides: it requires syringes and trained health workers to inject the drug, the needles must be properly disposed of to prevent possible transmission of other disease, and there is a risk of an allergic reaction.

In a study of about 250 children, half got penicillin injections, the others gotazithromycin in pill form.

After six months, the results were similar for each group: nearly all children were cured in both groups, and no serious side effects were reported.

But Hays says this alone isn't enough to switch to the azithromycin pills.

"From our point of view, we feel that the next logical step is to conduct a mass drug administration of azithromycin in a limited setting, and to then follow up that population and see if we can demonstrate that yaws can be eliminated from a particular location."

Russell Hays's research paper is published online by The Lancet.

In a commentary, also in The Lancet, tropical disease expert David Mabey, of the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, agrees with the need for more research. But he also worries that the yaws bacteria might develop resistance to azithromycin.

yaws: 雅司病(热带肉芽肿)

penicillin: 盘尼西林(青霉素)

cartilage: 软骨

syringes: 医疗用注射筒

azithromycin: 阿奇霉素(一种抗生素)

Related Stories:

Should anthrax vaccine be tested in children?

Drug factories ordered to clean up

Obesity as a social disease?

当代十大发明评选结果出炉

(来源:VOA 编辑:Rosy)

 

分享到

中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883561联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。

中国日报网双语新闻

扫描左侧二维码

添加Chinadaily_Mobile
你想看的我们这儿都有!

中国日报双语手机报

点击左侧图标查看订阅方式

中国首份双语手机报
学英语看资讯一个都不能少!

关注和订阅

本文相关阅读
人气排行
搜热词
 
 
精华栏目
 

阅读

词汇

视听

翻译

口语

合作

 

关于我们 | 联系方式 | 招聘信息

Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. 版权声明:本网站所刊登的中国日报网英语点津内容,版权属中国日报网所有,未经协议授权,禁止下载使用。 欢迎愿意与本网站合作的单位或个人与我们联系。

电话:8610-84883645

传真:8610-84883500

Email: languagetips@chinadaily.com.cn