Tetanus begins to take toll on tsunami survivors
Tetanus begins to take toll on tsunami survivors
Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh, Aceh
At least six people in Banda Aceh, including two children, have
died of tetanus over the past several days, while 30 others have
been hospitalized with severe infections.
Rina Tantri, a volunteer doctor at the state-owned Zainoel
Abidin Hospital, said on Saturday the hospital had received at
least two tetanus patients every day since it resumed operations
last Monday.
"They were admitted here already in poor condition. We have a
patient die almost every day," she said.
The Tengku Fakinah Hospital in Banda Aceh is also treating
several people for tetanus.
On Friday, Medecins Sans Frontiers said in a statement that
tetanus has been detected in at least 67 people.
Several patients have undergone surgery to have parts of their
limbs amputated to stop the spread of the fatal infection. The
surgeries have been performed by a team of doctors from
Australia.
Rina said the hospital was being overwhelmed with tetanus
patients because tetanus vaccines were still not widely
available.
Tetanus was seen as less of a threat to tsunami survivors than
diarrhea, respiratory infection, malaria and hepatitis, so
medical teams only prepared enough vaccines for people collecting
corpses and police officers helping to clear debris from the
city.
"We predicted only endemic diseases such as diarrhea and lung
and respiratory infections would appear at the camps for
internally displaced persons," Rina said.
The head of the national medical team under the disaster
coordination task force in Banda Aceh, Idrus Paturusi, said
hospitals now had sufficient medicine and vaccines to deal with
tetanus.
However, the team expects more patients with tetanus because
people continue to return to their destroyed homes looking for
the bodies of loved one or trying to salvage usable items.
"They dig through their houses without wearing safety
equipment or without first receiving a tetanus vaccine, and they
are being exposed to tetanus through rusting nails and pieces of
metal," Rina said.
Another doctor, Misnah D Basir, said tetanus had an incubation
period of up to 60 days and most people came to the hospital too
late.
"We encourage people to come to a medical tent as soon as they
suffer an injury while digging through the ruins," she said.