A team conducting the medical outreach program was in Emerti Village today.
Emerti Village in the Upper Bamu LLG of Daru, Western Province, is the village where alarms about the Yaws disease were raised early last month.
According to the World Health Organisation, Yaws is a chronic infection that affects mainly the skin, bone and cartilage.
The disease occurs mainly in poor communities in warm, humid, tropical areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
At the Emerti Station Health Centre, 20 suspected cases were attended to in the last month.
Most of the cases were from children between the ages of 5 to 16.
Community Health Worker Joel Waika said the disease was common amongst children from the Lower Bamu villages.
He said concerns were raised after they noticed the sores developed into ulcers, with the skins around the sore yellowish in colour, accompanied with a foul odour.
Waika further explained that these symptoms could pass for the Yaws disease hence, the health workers alerted the earthquake disaster relief team who traveled into the village last month to do earthquake assessments to report the matter to authorities.
This prompted the Office of the Emergency Controller to carry out the outreach program.
The aim of the medical outreach program is to conduct tests for the suspected cases to determine whether or not the sores and ulcers are Yaws related.
23 tests were conducted with 3 coming back positive. These 3 positive cases are from villages in Upper Bamu while Emerti Village remains Yaws free.
