Yaws

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Frambesia tropica

Treatment involves a single dose of a specific type of penicillin, or or 3 weekly doses for later stage disease. It is rare for the disease to return.

If treated in its early stages, yaws can be cured. Skin lesions may take several months to heal.

By its late stage, yaws may have already caused damage to the skin and bones. It may not be fully reversible, even with treatment.

Yaws may damage the skin and bones, affecting the appearance and ability to move. It can also cause deformities of the legs, nose, palate, and upper jaw.

Contact your health care provider if you or your child has sores on the skin or bone that don't go away, and you have stayed in tropical areas where yaws is known to occur.

Review Date: 02/23/2010
Reviewed By: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine; Jatin M. Vyas, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Assistant in Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.

A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org).

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