1. Enters your body through wounds
2. Makes muscle contract painfully
3. Can kill in days if no treatment
4. No cure, so better to PROTECT YOURSELF!
A thread 🧵
{Share for awareness!}
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This germ produces a dangerous #toxin that makes your muscles painfully contract on their own & become rigid.
This man had neck stiffness & lockjaw from tetanus;
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When it has a chance, it enter your body through:
- Wounds contaminated with soil or feces, or
- Punctures by nonsterile needles (like some injecting illegal drugs, tattooing or body piercing)
So they don't go to see a doctor, & won't even remember when it happened.
Injuries that involve dead skin are more likely to cause tetanus e.g. burns, frostbite, gangrene, or crush injuries
In some places, due to traditional beliefs, a newborn's umbilical stump is dressed with soil, animal dung, toothpaste, etc, which contaminate the stump causing #NeonatalTetanus.
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It produces #spores, which are inactive or dormant.
These spores enable it to survive when environmental conditions are difficult.
But as soon a conditions are favorable, the spores grow into bacteria.
Asphyxia is insufficient supply of oxygen to the body due to abnormal breathing.
That's why a tetanus patient might end up needing artificial ventilation to stay alive.
Treatment only consists of
- wound care
- medications to ease symptoms &
- supportive care
No definitive cure! So it's safer to stay protected.
4. Once you've stopped he bleeding, leave unclean wounds open to avoid trapping bacteria in the wound with a bandage.
5. Help educate others.
The key word is PREVENTION!
Spread this message to others.
Tetanus is vaccine-preventable i.e. it happens only to people who have not been vaccinated or don't have their vaccinations up to date.
Tetanus is infectious but not contagious meaning you won't contract it from someone who has the disease.