The hospital ranked tetanus third after dengue and hepatitis.
A 40-year-old man from the Mekong Delta Province of Tien Giang who is being treated in the hospital said that he had got tetanus from suffering a small wound in the hand. He revealed not to get tetanus vaccine before.
Another man hailing from the Mekong Delta Province of Dong Thap was hospitalized when he had stiffness in the jaw and difficulty in swallowing. He had a small cuts in the toe as he kicked a piece of iron. He and his relative got shocked when informed to have tetanus because they thought it was a very small wound. He had not vaccinated before.
Head of the hospital’ Infectious Ward Dr. Nguyen Thanh Phong said that manual laborers and the infection rate amongst male is higher than amongst female who are usually injected vaccine during pregnancy.
Common initial symptoms of tetanus are a headache and muscular stiffness in the jaw (lockjaw) followed by stiffness of the neck, difficulty swallowing, hardening of abdominal muscles, spasms, sweating, and fever. Symptoms usually begin around eight days following infection, but onset may range from three days to three weeks. Patients should be taken to a hospital for treatment or they may die.
Dr. Phong said that increase in the number of tetanus patients is because people eschew vaccinations or neglect the need for booster vaccinations. Most of 186 hospitalized cases in the hospital are not injected vaccine against tetanus.
According to Deputy Director of the city Disease Control Center Dr. Huynh Ngoc Thanh said the current rate of vaccination is 15 percent lower than the target this year while it was over 95 percent in previous year for social distancing.
The Center has planned to vaccinate those who have not injected vaccine in the national Expanded Immunization Program.
Medical experts advised people to go to medical institutions for vaccination because treatment of tetanus is very high around VND15 million – VND45 million ( US$ 648.8- US$1,946).
