Detection and treatment
Innocent and Samuel. Detected thanks to training
A 10-year-old boy who, thanks to an awareness talk, was diagnosed with yaws in time.
Innocent is a ten-year-old boy from the rural community of Obrayebona, Ghana.
After attending a talk to raise awareness on detecting yaws, his father Samuel suspected that his son’s wound of several days could be the disease. Based on the information received in this talk, they went to their community health centre, where a rapid test was performed on the child. Innocent tested positive and, owing to this early diagnosis, received antibiotics to eradicate the disease without it causing lifelong after-effects.
Promoting early detection is one of the cornerstones of guaranteeing the health of children like Innocent. Therefore, health centres closest to those most affected by forgotten diseases must have diagnosis kits and staff trained to use them to detect the disease in time.