Public Health France publishes this Tuesday, December 11 its weekly epidemiological bulletin, recalling the need to be vaccinated against tetanus.
During the years 2012 to 2017, a total of 35 cases of tetanus were declared, among which 8 people died, “a lethality of 23%”, indicates Public Health France. 5 French people were infected in 2012, 10 in 2013, 3 in 2014, 9 in 2015, 4 in 2016 and 4 in 2017, which corresponds to an incidence of declared cases of between 0.05 cases and 0.15 cases per million of inhabitants.
3 patients were under 10 years old
The cases mainly concern the elderly (71% were aged 70 or over) and women (63%). Although vaccination against tetanus has been compulsory in France before the age of 18 months since 1940, it should be noted that 3 patients were under 10 years old. We are talking here about young boys aged 3, 4 and 8 years old.
“All of these cases and deaths could have been avoided by better application of the tetanus vaccination schedule and, in the event of a wound, by vaccination and administration of specific human immunoglobulins according to the recommended protocol”, deplores the agency.
Contractures and spasms
Tetanus is a serious, often fatal, acute poisoning caused by an extremely potent neurotoxin produced by Clostridium tetani. This bacillus is occasionally present in the digestive tract of animals and persists in animal waste and soil. It enters the body through a wound. Disseminated in the general circulation, tetanus toxin will cause, after an incubation of 4 to 21 days, contractures and spasms. The ensuing death is extremely painful.
The disease comes in three forms: generalized (the most frequent and most serious, 80% of cases), localized (anatomical region close to the wound) or cephalic (affecting the brain and/or cranial nerves).
Vaccination schedule
In infants and children, the vaccination schedule provides for two doses two months apart from the age of 2 months, then booster shots at the ages of 11 months, 6 years and between 11 and 13 years. Subsequent boosters are given in adulthood at ages 25, 45, and 65, then every 10 years from age 75. While the disease had declined sharply from 1960 to 2006, it has now returned in small proportions.
.