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.