A hot African morning. A young dark-skinned woman held her newborn baby in her arms and prayed quietly ... If only everything was fine. Just to have time. The kid did not react in any way to her whisper, and seemed to be asleep. How could it have happened, she thought. After all, everything was fine! According to tradition, the delivery was made by the husband, and the umbilical cord was cut with sharply sharpened bamboo rod. Does she forget the first cry of her child! He was healthy, 3 days ago her child was healthy!
The son was put on her stomach immediately after birth, and he slowly crawled to his chest. He kissed and began to suck. And in half an hour he fell asleep, tired of all the experiences that had fallen on him for that day. It was not her first child, and nothing unexpected was foreseen. She slept with the baby for 4 hours. And the next day her life went into the usual course, only now, everywhere with her was her little one. Day, two, three ... At first she decided that nothing strange was happening: he was restlessly pressed to his chest, then began to cry heavily, and then stopped sucking altogether. And when the baby was seized by convulsions, she sounded the alarm and went with her husband to the hospital for 50 km from their settlement ... The doctors diagnosed an acute specific infection, a newborn tetanus, and said that if the vaccine was not injected, the child would die. Countdown on the clock ...
Face of disease
Among all infections that attack a newborn baby, tetanus is the most dangerous, as the disease develops rapidly and leads to the death of the baby. The picture of the disease is as follows. For 3-10 days a child fades, losing first the reflex of sucking, then motor, after which convulsions and spasms appear.
Neonatal tetanus, or tetanus of the newborn, is a rare problem for our country or countries of Europe, but in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and India it is encountered almost daily. The reason is obvious: home births conducted without medication, poor hygienic conditions in which the birth and circumcision of the umbilical cord take place - all this opens the gate of infection. Each year, about 140,000 children die from tetanus in 47 countries. The statistics are appalling, especially given the fact that there is a vaccine for this deadly infection, and was invented more than 70 (!) Years ago.
In other words, a newborn, infected with tetanus through the umbilical cord, can be saved if the vaccine is injected in a timely manner. There is nothing easier for us, but it is almost impossible in poor countries where this vaccine simply may not be available.
A vaccine that saves
Of course, such a situation can not remain without attention. It's one thing when people die from unknown hards, to which scientists have not yet picked up "keys" - treatment schemes, drugs.
But if we are talking about a completely curable disease that can not be coped with, simply because there is no medicine in the arsenal of local doctors, this is unacceptable, there is a desire to do everything possible to help.
In any case, the treatment should be carried out in a modern clinic, and the diagnosis of the disease must be made necessarily by a specialist of the highest category. Otherwise, if the diagnosis is made incorrectly, then you risk not only the health of the baby, but your own psycho-emotional health. Therefore, the treatment of tetanus is more than serious.