Tetanus
Pregnant women need the full schedule, and adults need a booster every 10 years.
Transmission
Tetanus spores from soil and animal dung enter through skin wounds, burns, stepping on rusty nails, surgery or unhygienic childbirth.
Symptoms
Lockjaw, difficulty chewing and swallowing, stiffness of muscles throughout the body, violent spasms triggered by light or noise, arched back.
Complications
Respiratory failure from laryngeal spasm, fractures and cracked vertebrae from extremely strong muscle spasms, sudden cardiac arrest, high mortality.
People at high risk
Pregnant women and newborns (neonatal tetanus), farmers, construction workers.
Preventive vaccines
- Hexaxim – 6-in-1 combination vaccine
- Infanrix hexa – 6-in-1 combination vaccine
- Pentaxim – 5-in-1 combination vaccine (acellular)
- ComBE Five – 5-in-1 combination vaccine (whole-cell)
- DPT-VGB-Hib (SII) – 5-in-1 vaccine (DTwP-HepB-Hib)
- Tetraxim – 4-in-1 combination vaccine
- Boostrix (Tdap) – Reduced-antigen diphtheria–tetanus–pertussis vaccine
- DPT (IVAC) – Adsorbed diphtheria–pertussis–tetanus vaccine
- Td (IVAC) – Adsorbed tetanus–diphtheria vaccine, reduced antigen
- Adacel (Tdap) – Sanofi reduced-antigen diphtheria–tetanus–pertussis vaccine
- Tetavax – Purified tetanus toxoid vaccine
- Adsorbed tetanus vaccine (TT) – Adsorbed tetanus toxoid