Scabies and Global Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases

In 1991, Taplin et al. published a seminal study from Panama showing that mass drug administration of the then newly available permethrin cream dramatically reduced the high rates of endemic scabies in island communities.1 In this issue of the Journal, Romani and colleagues report the results of the Skin Health Intervention Fiji Trial (SHIFT),2 which confirm the efficacy of mass administration of topical permethrin for scabies control. However, in their elegant randomized study involving island communities in Fiji, they also found that mass administration of oral ivermectin had superior effectiveness for scabies control. This study is timely, because scabies . . .