Is tetanus contagious?

Everyone must have heard of some incidents where people were injured but did not get tetanus shots in time, and eventually contracted tetanus but did not receive timely treatment, leading to death. Therefore, tetanus is a very serious disease for the human body. Once you find that you may have tetanus, you should seek medical treatment in time. However, many people have doubts, is tetanus so serious and contagious? Let’s learn about it together.

1. Tetanus is an acute infectious disease characterized by systemic muscle rigidity and spasm caused by Clostridium tetani invading human wounds, growing and multiplying in an anaerobic environment, producing neurotropic exotoxins. Severe patients may die from laryngeal spasm or secondary severe lung infection. Neonatal tetanus is caused by umbilical cord infection and has a high mortality rate. Although the World Health Organization has actively promoted the global immunization program, it is estimated that there are still nearly one million cases of tetanus and hundreds of thousands of newborns die from tetanus every year in the world.

2. Neonatal tetanus, commonly known as "four-six wind" by the people, is an acute and serious infectious disease caused by a bacterium called "Tetanus Clostridium" invading through the navel. This bacterium is an anaerobic bacterium with extremely strong survival ability. It can survive for decades in soil exposed to sunlight and can withstand boiling for 60 minutes and dry heat at 150 degrees for 1 hour. It lives in an oxygen-deficient environment and can produce tetanus toxin. Once this toxin combines with nerve tissue, it is difficult to neutralize and thus produces a series of symptoms.

3. People and animals carrying tetanus bacteria are the sources of infection of this disease. It does not cause disease under normal circumstances, but only causes disease when trauma occurs and tetanus bacteria invade. The incubation period ranges from 2 hours to several months or years.

4. Tetanus bacteria is one of the common bacteria in the soil and is widely distributed in nature. Tetanus bacteria are widely present in the intestines of humans, poultry, livestock, etc., are excreted from the body with feces and contaminate the soil, and enter the human body through trauma or wounds with soil or dust. The main modes of infection are:

Traumatic infection: infection caused by trauma through soil or other foreign objects containing tetanus bacteria.

Umbilical cord infection: Cutting the umbilical cord with unclean instruments or treating the umbilical cord with unclean dressings may cause the umbilical cord wound to be contaminated with tetanus bacteria.

Other infections: birth canal, ear canal, tooth extraction, rat bites and post-operative infections, etc.

1. Tetanus is a specific infection often associated with trauma. Wounds of all types and sizes may be contaminated, especially open fractures, wounds containing rust, small and deep puncture wounds, blind tube trauma, and firearm injuries, which are more susceptible to contamination by Clostridium tetani. The most common puncture wounds in children are in the hands and feet. If you apply soil, incense ash, wood ash or other crude methods to the wound, it will be more likely to cause illness.

2. In addition to occurring after various traumas, it may also occur in mothers and newborns who give birth under unclean conditions, and after informal abortions. Otitis media, pressure sores, tooth extraction and intrauterine ring placement may all cause this disease. The number of drug addicts suffering from tetanus due to intravenous drug injection using unclean syringes is also on the rise.

3. The pathogenic bacterium, Clostridium tetani, is an absolute anaerobic bacterium and is Gram-stain positive. Both livestock and human feces can contain bacteria. After being excreted from the body, they are distributed in nature in the form of spores, especially in the soil, where they can survive for several years. This fungus has strong resistance to the environment and can withstand boiling for 15 to 90 minutes. Clostridium tetani produces a highly toxic exotoxin, the neurotoxin. After the toxin is produced, it does not cause inflammation locally, but spreads to the surrounding area, invades muscle tissue, and transmits upward in the opposite direction of the nerve impulse, eventually entering the motor nerve nucleus of the anterior horn of the spinal cord or the brainstem.