The World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Global Yaws Programme with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1952. It treated 300 million people in 50 countries and reduced global levels of the disease by more than 95% by the end of 1964. The problem was nearly solved, but there were resurgences particularly in the 1970s and recently in 2006. Kingsley Asiedu talks about what went wrong in the past and how to make sustainable gains in the control of this little-known disease today.