Cameroon investigates yaws outbreak among indigenous populations
21 July 2017, Geneva – Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health has announced it will further investigate an outbreak of yaws, which over the past few months, has affected hundreds of Baka and Bantu people in the Lomie Health District in the east of the country.
Neighbouring districts are also reported to be affected.
“We dispatched medicines and rapid diagnostic test materials to the region as soon as we were notified out this outbreak” said Dr Earnest Njih Tablah, Permanent Secretary of the National Leprosy, Yaws, Leishmaniasis, Leprosy and Buruli Ulcer Control Programme, Ministry of Public Health. “Our preliminary investigations revealed that cases were occurring in an insidious manner since January and peaked in to an epidemic by April and May, spreading to neighbouring areas of Ngoyla and Messok.”