Information about tetanus and its dangers
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© UNICEF/2008 |
In third world countries, women often give birth at home in unsanitary conditions putting themselves and their newborns at high risk of contracting tetanus, an acute infectious disease. No wonder that this preventable disease is one of the most widely spread causes of mortality among women and chidren in these countries. Tetanus spores can pass through the umbilical cord when cut, infecting both the mother and her baby, which almost always leads to a swift and painful death.
In Russia, thanks to the compulsory vaccination against tetanus, the disease mortality rate has been brought to its minimum level. Since 2003, not a single death from tetanus among newborns has been reported in Russia. At the same time, UNICEF estimates that worldwide, a newborn child dies of tetanus every three minutes. Most of the infants die in Africa and South-East Asia. These figures are shocking, particularly if you take into consideration the fact that only two doses of the tetanus vaccine are enough to protect the mother and her baby against tetanus during childbirth and the next two months.
