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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Doctors at Mulago National Referral Hospital have urged men to take up vaccination against tetanus, raising an alarm that they comprise the highest number of admission at the national referral facility.
According to Dr. John Ssekabira, the Ag. Deputy Director of the hospital more men are being treated but they only get to be jabbed when they have injuries resulting from road traffic crashes.
He says saving those that test positive for tetanus is very costly and lives are lost unnecessary in a disease whose vaccines are readily available.
Speaking to URN in an interview, Sr Deborah Mawanda, the In-charge of Immunization at the hospital said, to be on a safe side individuals need to take a combined Tetanus and Diphtheria vaccine five times in their lifetime but recently even when they organize medical camps only females tend to turn-up for vaccination.
Experts recommend that once one gets their vaccine, a second dose should be taken four weeks later, another after four months, then after six months and the final one after two years.
For now, Mawanda says even as more ladies are getting vaccinated, having them complete their doses is challenging unless someone is a mother of reproductive age who is given a mandatory vaccine during antenatal clinics.
She warns that tetanus can be life threatening as sufferers tend to present with symptoms such as jaw cramping, involuntary muscle spasms and stiffness, seizures and organ failure.
Caused by Clostridium tetani bacteria, management of tetanus in adults often requires treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU), which is often not available or very costly, resulting in preventable deaths.
In Mulago for instance, in a study whose results were published last year, 224 of the 459 people that were admitted died of whom 85.3% were male.
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