Parents refuse shots after tetanus almost kills boy
An unvaccinated 6-year-old Oregon boy was hospitalised for two months for tetanus and almost died of the bacterial illness after getting a deep laceration on his forehead while playing on a farm, according to a case study published by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The 2017 case was the first case of paediatric tetanus in Oregon in more than 30 years, and has alarmed infectious disease experts, who said tetanus had been almost unheard of in the US since widespread immunisation began in the 1940s.
The child received an emergency dose of the tetanus vaccine at a hospital, but his parents declined to give him a second dose – or any other common childhood vaccinations – after he recovered, the paper said.
‘‘When I read that, my jaw dropped,’’ said Dr William Schaffner, an expert in infectious diseases and chair at the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. ‘‘That’s a tragedy and a misunderstanding, and I’m just flabbergasted.’’
The paper did not provide any details about the child, his family or where they live in Oregon.
News of the tetanus case comes as lawmakers in Oregon and Washington are considering bills that would end non-medical exemptions for routine childhood vaccines, as the US Pacific Northwest weathers its third month of a measles outbreak.
Seventy people in southwest Washington, most of them unvaccinated children, have been diagnosed with the highly contagious viral illness since January 1, as well as a handful of people in Portland, Oregon.
Tetanus spores exist everywhere, particularly in the soil. When an unvaccinated person gets a deep, penetrating wound, the spores can invade the cut and begin producing the bacteria that causes the illness.
Symptoms include muscle spasms, lockjaw, difficulty swallowing and breathing, and seizures. The disease can cause death, or severe disability in those who survive.
The Oregon boy’s care – not including an air ambulance and inpatient rehabilitation – cost nearly US$1 million, the paper noted.
Cases of tetanus have dropped by 95 per cent in the US since widespread childhood vaccination and adult booster shots became routine nearly 80 years ago, while deaths have dropped 99 per cent.