Flesh-eating disease making a comeback

A virtually eradicated disease that eats through people's skin, cartilage and bones is reappearing in Africa, Asia and South America, the World Health Organisation has warned. Yaws, which is triggered by bacterial infection and can cause debilitating deformations, particularly in children under 15, once affected 50 million people worldwide before a massive treatment program in the 1950s almost succeeded in wiping it out. When the disease's incidence went down by 95 per cent, control programs were gradually dismantled. "People assumed that the last few cases would be caught by public health systems, but yaws made a comeback," said Dr Kingsley Asiedu, a WHO disease expert. At present, 500,000 people mostly in poor, rural areas are affected by yaws, according to WHO.