Prevalence of Yaws in Assin District

Abstract

Yaws is a chronic non-venereal infectious disease caused by a spirochete organism Treponema pertenue. It is endemic in the tropics and common in the rural areas among the low socioeconomic groups. It affects mainly children aged 15 years and below, who live in poor, overcrowded and insanitary conditions. The infection is transmitted from one person to another by direct skin to skin contact with material from infectious lesions. Lack of soap and water, cloths and footwear and the presence of cuts and abrasions, and possibly flies settling on moist lesions facilitate the spread of the disease. The treponema cannot penetrate intact skin The disease is characterized by highly contagious primary and secondary lesions and non-contagious tertiary \ late destructive lesions. Within two to eight weeks of infection the lesion known as “mother yaws” or primary yaws appears in the form of a granulamatous ulcer at the point of implantation of the spirochaetal infection on the face or extremities usually the leg. The primary yaws is painless unless it is secondarily infected. There is also an enlargement of regional lymph glands which usually accompanies the appearance of the primary yaws but they usually disappear several weeks later. It proliferates slowly and may form a frambesial (raspberry) lesion or undergo ulceration.