The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), which affect the very poor, pose a major public health problem in the South-East Asia Region of the World Health Organization (WHO). Although more than a dozen NTDs affect the region, over the past five years four of them in particular

India has got a pat on back from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for eliminating yaws, one of the most neglected tropical diseases, affecting poor countries. A chronic skin infection that affects skin, bone and cartilage, yaws can cause irreversible destruction of tissue and deformities in late stages. The disease can be prevented and cured by a single shot of long-acting Penicillin.