Results for yaws
On this page:
 

Definition

Yaws is a chronic illness which first affects the skin, and then affects the bones.

Description

Yaws tends to strike children, particularly between the ages of two and five. It is common in areas where poverty and overcrowding interfere with good hygiene practices. The most common locations are in rural areas throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, and in locations bordering the equator in the Americas.

— Rosalyn Carson-DeWitt, MD



 
 
Dictionary: yaws  (yôz) pronunciation
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

A highly contagious tropical disease that chiefly affects children, caused by the spirochete Treponema pertenue and characterized by raspberrylike sores, especially on the hands, feet, and face. Also called frambesia.

[From American Spanish yaya, sore, from Carib yaya, disease.]


 

An infectious disease of humans caused by the spirochete Treponema pertenue. It is also known as frambesia and is largely confined to the tropics. Usually yaws is contracted in childhood by direct contact or from small flies feeding in succession on infected lesions and open wounds. No race or age possesses natural immunity.


 
(yôz)
n

A disease caused by Treponema pertenue. It occurs in hot regions; raspberry-like excrescences occur on the hands, face, feet, and external genitalia.

 

Contagious tropical disease, caused by a variant of the spirochete that causes syphilis. Yaws spreads mainly by discharge from skin sores, not sexual activity. It is common in children, who usually become immune. In the first stage, a skin sore starts as a wartlike thickening, cracks open, leaks fluid, and bleeds easily. A month or more later, multiple sores erupt. The third stage (much rarer than in syphilis) involves destruction of skin, mucous membranes, and bones. Penicillin cures early-stage yaws. Prevention requires isolation and prompt treatment and personal and group hygiene.

For more information on yaws, visit Britannica.com.

 
or frambesia, tropical infection of the skin caused by a spirochete (Treponema pertenue) closely related to that causing syphilis. Yaws, however, is not a sexually transmitted disease, i.e., it is not contracted by sexual contact; transmission is through ordinary contact with infected persons or their clothing and by insects. An ulcerating lesion (“mother yaw”) appears at the site of contact. The second stage of the disease begins 6 to 12 weeks later, when similar ulcerating lesions appear all over the body. If the disease is not treated, the third stage develops several years later, nodular and ulcerating lesions affecting the soles of the feet (“crab yaws”) and penetrating the bones with destructive changes. The first and second stages of yaws are easily treated with penicillin and other antibiotics. Yaws is rarely fatal; however, it can lead to chronic disfigurement and disability.


 
Wikipedia: yaws


Yaws
Classification & external resources
Yaws_01.jpg
Nodules on the elbow resulting from a Treponema pertenue bacterial infection.
ICD-10 A66.
ICD-9 102

Yaws (also Pétasse tropica, thymosis, polypapilloma tropicum or pian) is a tropical infection of the skin, bones and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pertenue. Other treponematosis diseases are bejel (Treponema endemicum), pinta (Treponema carateum), syphilis (Treponema pallidum), and Lyme Disease (Borrelia burgdorferi)

Epidemiology

The disease is transmitted by skin contact with infected individuals or eye gnats, the spirochete entering through an existing cut or similar damage. Within ninety days (but usually less than a month) of infection a painless but distinctive 'mother yaw' ulcer appears. These tracts heal with keloid formation which can cause deformities, disabilities and limb contractures. The bone lesions caused are periostitis, osteitis, and osteomyelitis, damage to the tibia can lead to a condition known as sabre shins. In a very few cases a condition known as goundou is caused where growths on the nasal maxillae can result in extensive and severe damage to the nose and palate.

The largest group afflicted by yaws are children aged 6 to 10 years in tropical areas of the Americas, Africa, Asia or Oceania. There were World Health Organization funded campaigns against yaws from 1954 to 1963 which greatly reduced the incidence of the disease, although more recently numbers have risen again.

The disease is identified from blood tests or by a lesion sample through a darkfield examination under a microscope. Treatment is by a single dose of penicillin, erythromycin or tetracycline, recurrence or relapse is uncommon.

Examination of ancient remains has led to the suggestion that yaws has affected hominids for the last 1.5 million years. The current name is believed to be of Carib origin, "yaya" meaning sore; frambesia is a Modern Latin word inspired by the French word Pétasse ("raspberry").

Occurrence

Yaws was nearly eradicated by a worldwide treatment program in the 1950s, which reduced the number of sufferers of yaws from an estimated 50 million to nearly zero. However, the World Health Organization reported in January 2007 that yaws is on the rise again, with roughly a half a million sufferers, mostly in poor, rural areas.[1]

References

  1. ^ WHO: Flesh-Eating Disease Making Comeback. Associated Press (January 25, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
  • McNeill, Katie H. "Plagues and People." Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., New York, NY, 1976, ISBN 0-385-12122-9.

 
 

Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "yaws" at WikiAnswers.

 

Copyrights:

Medical Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Sci-Tech Encyclopedia. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Dental Dictionary. Mosby's Dental Dictionary. Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Yaws" Read more

Search for answers directly from your browser with the FREE Answers.com Toolbar!  
Click here to download now. 

Get Answers your way! Check out all our free tools and products.

On this page:   E-mail   print Print  Link  

 

Keep Reading

Mentioned In: