Let's talk infectious diseases, the reason for vaccines: ᵀᵉᵗᵃⁿᵘˢ

Tetanus is a disease that is spread by contact with an object or surface that has been contaminated with Clostridium tetani.

Clostridium tetani is an anaerobic bacterium, meaning that it cannot live or grow where oxygen is present. When exposed to air, the bacterium will form a protective spore which allows it to remain in a dormant state, largely impervious to heat, dryness, ultraviolet radiation, or household disinfectants.

The spores can remain viable for years in soil and be reactivated when it is returned to a favorable moist environment. One such environment is a deep puncture wound in which the reactivated bacteria is able to establish an infection.

Once in the body, tetanus will release toxins—known as tetanospasmin toxins—that bind to nerve cells. The toxins will then spread through peripheral nerves until they finally reach the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord). As the bacteria multiply and amplify this effect, the tetanospasmin toxins will begin to block the production of certain chemical messengers, known as neurotransmitters, that control voluntary muscle movement.

In terms of toxicity, tetanospasmin toxin is the second deadliest bacterial neurotoxin next to the botulinum toxin found in Botox.

In addition to generalized tetanus, there are other, less common forms of the disease.

▪️Local tetanus only affects the muscles around the immediate area of infection.

▪️Cephalic tetanus is limited only to the muscles of the head.

▪️Neonatal tetanus involves newborns of mothers who have not been vaccinated for tetanus. Because the baby has no inborn immunity to C. tetani, it is vulnerable to infection, most often as a result of an infected umbilical stump. While rare in the developed world, neonatal tetanus is the second leading cause of vaccine-preventable diseases among children worldwide.

Tetanus occurs almost exclusively in people who have not been vaccinated against C. tetani. If left untreated, a tetanus infection can progress from mild spasms to powerful whole-body contractions, suffocation, and heart attack. There is no cure for tetanus. The treatment of tetanus is based on vaccination status.

During the 1890s, the combined work of Shibasaburo Kitasato, Emil von Bering, and Edmond Nocard demonstrated that tetanus antitoxin had both protective and immunizing effects against tetanus toxins. In the early 1900s, medical organizations were reporting that untreated tetanus killed up to 85% of those infected.

World War I was instrumental in the effort to find a way to treat tetanus. Much of the fighting occurred in fields, where wounds were constantly exposed to tetanus spores. Further, the explosive power of modern weapons drove dirt and shrapnel deep into wounded tissue, where conditions are conducive to the bacterium’s growth.

Desperate to avoid tetanus’s enormous fatality rate, military doctors invested heavily in the new serum therapy. They used antitoxin for both prevention and treatment, experimenting with the size and number of doses which led to serum sickness in hundreds of soldiers. However, tetanus antitoxin is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives during the war.

A vaccine to prevent tetanus – tetanus toxoid – was introduced in 1924. Tetanus toxoid is an inactivated form of the toxin; it teaches the body to recognize and produce antibodies against the toxin, but is not able to damage the body itself. Yet, the vaccine was not frequently used until World War II, when it became one of the routine vaccinations given to all American soldiers.

On the heels of the war, vaccination with tetanus toxoid became common for all Americans. Routine vaccination has ensured that death from tetanus is rare in the United States. However, a vaccination booster must be repeated every ten years to keep that immunity. People who do contract tetanus may be treated with a modern form of antitoxin, tetanus immune globulin.

{You can find all the sources I used by clicking here.}