What are developmental stages in the course of yaws?
Yaws has four stages: primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary. The primary stage is the appearance of the mother yaw. Patients with yaws develop recurring (“secondary”) lesions and more swollen lymph nodes. This represents the secondary stage. These secondary lesions may be painless like the mother yaw or they may be filled with pus, burst, and ulcerate. The affected child often experiences malaise (feels poorly) and anorexia (loss of appetite). The latent stage occurs when the disease symptoms abate, although an occasional lesion may occur. In the tertiary stage, yaws can destroy areas of the skin, bones, and joints and deform them. The palms of the hands and soles of the feet tend to become thickened and painful (crab yaws). How is yaws diagnosed? Yaws is suspected in any child who has the characteristic clinical features and lives in an area where the disease is common. With increasing travel, a child once in the tropics may carry the disease to a more temperate area of the world.
