Professor Šmajs' team published in the New England Journal of Medicine!

Professor David Šmajs, together with Petra Pospíšilová and Monica Meddapa from the Department of Biology of the Faculty of Medicine participated in an important scientific study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, which is one of the most prestigious journals in the field of biomedical research. The paper is titled Trial of Three Rounds of Mass Azithromycin Administration for Yaws Eradication and was written by researchers from Papua New Guinea, Spain, the Czech Republic, the UK, and the USA.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Oriol Mitjà from the Infectious Diseases Foundation (Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Badalona, Spain) has focused on procedures aimed at eradicating yaws disease. Yaws is an infectious skin disease caused by bacteria of the genus Treponema. It occurs exclusively in humid tropical areas, where thousands of people are infected every year. The research aimed to determine a more effective strategy to eradicate yaws than the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends. Setting up rules for international cooperation and using scientific capacity in developing countries was also a crucial part of the research.

In 2012, Dr. Mitjà, together with Dr. Camila G. Beiras and Dr. Marti Vall-Mayans, prepared a scientific basis for the WHO recommendation to eradicate yaws by administering a single dose of azithromycin to all populations in areas with the disease. However, in 2018 was found that this approach is not effective and does not lead to the desired outcome. The publication, co-authored by Professor Shmajs' team, presents the results of a clinical trial from 2018 and 2019, in which 57,000 residents in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, were randomly assigned to two research arms. In the control arm, study participants were administered a single dose of azithromycin according to WHO recommendations and were subsequently targeted to treat cases with a complicated course of yaws, while the second group was experimentally administered a dose of azithromycin three times six months apart. As a result, the incidence of yaws was four times lower in the experimental group than in the group treated according to WHO recommendations. Thus, this result indicated a future strategy to eradicate yaws disease.