Tetanus vaccinations to fight infant deaths

The Liberian government and the UN have launched a nation-wide campaign to vaccinate women against tetanus, a simple measure which aid agencies estimate could help slash infant deaths by up to 70 percent. Some 258,000 women of childbearing age will get anti-tetanus shots in the first phase of the campaign, which covers five of Liberia’s 15 counties. The second and third phases are expected to kick-off next year, eventually reaching more than 800,000 women, according to Liberia’s Health Minister Walter Gwenigale. In 2001, the last time figures were drawn up by the Liberian government, the toxic infection which is picked up when a wound is contaminated by dirt and bacteria, was the second biggest killer of under-fives. Only mosquito-borne malaria claimed more child lives. Tetanus can be prevented with simple vaccinations and provision of sanitary conditions, but if left untreated causes seizure of the jaw muscles, called lock-jaw, heart palpitations and eventually death. “Women are giving birth under unsanitary conditions and are being administered by [untrained] midwives, and the safety of instruments used is a serious problem too because some of them are not properly sterilised,” one health worker in Lofa county in the remote northeastern corner of Liberia explained. According to official Liberian government estimates, just 20 percent of child births in Liberia are supervised by trained midwives and conducted in sanitary conditions. For the rest, dirty instruments wielded by untrained, unskilled midwives are the norm. In some communities in West Africa child deaths are so common that it is normal for families to put off naming a child for a week to three months after it is born. The NGO Save the Children estimated in its 2006 State of the World’s Children survey that Liberia was the 14th worst place to be born in the world, despite its estimating a much higher percentage of Liberian births being attended by a trained midwife, 51 percent. According to Save the Children, of more than 10 million children under the age of five who die each year in the developing world, about one in five - an estimated 2 million babies - die within the first 24 hours of life. An additional 1 million babies die during days two through seven, and a total of 4 million babies die during the first month. Save the Children says immunising women against tetanus and providing a skilled attendant at birth, could reduce these deaths by 70 percent. ak/nr/ss