Treponematosis

Treponematosis is a term used to individually describe any of the diseases caused by four members of the bacterial genus Treponema. The four diseases are collectively referred to as treponematoses:^[1]

• Syphilis (Treponema pallidum pallidum)
• Yaws (Treponema pallidum pertenue)
• Bejel (Treponema pallidum endemicum)
• Pinta (Treponema carateum)

Treponematosis
Specialty	Infectious disease

Traditional laboratory tests cannot distinguish the treponematoses.^[2] However, sequence differences among the T. pallidum subspecies have been identified. Molecular approaches involving PCR to identify these sequences are being developed.^[3]