India has become the world’s first country free from yaws in 2016. India became the first country under the WHO 2012 Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) road map to eliminate the infections. The certification came when a team of WHO experts found that the infections no longer spread in the country.
Yaws is a chronic disfiguring and debilitating childhood infectious disease that affects the skin, bone and cartilage. It was among the first targeted by WHO for eradication in the 1950s.
India, which hosted the seventh edition of WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) COP 7, also moved to the third rank globally among 205 countries with 85 per cent implementation of pictorial warnings on tobacco products packs.