Neonatal Tetanus in Lagos Metropolis
Abstract
SUMMARY: Neonatal Tetanus (NNT) is one of the six childhood diseases that have been targetted for eradication or control through the implementation of the Ex panded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) which in Nigeria was launched in 1984. A review of hospital records revealed that the number of NNT cases admitted to five health institutions. was 342 in 1984, increasing to 353 in 1985 359 in 1986 and becoming slightly reduced to 332 in 1987 and 319 in 1988 Records of 419 cases at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital over the five year period gave a male to female ratio of 1.3:1 for NNT admissions and 1.5:1 for NNT deaths. The admission rate for NNT was 15% of all neonatal admissions whilst the case fatality rate was 42%. Only eight mothers were reported to have received the first dose of tetanus toxoid during pregnancy. It is concluded that EPI has not had any appreciable impact on the prevalence of Neonatal Tetanus in Lagos Metropolis.
Published
Issue
Section
License
This is an open-access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, transform, and build upon the work even, commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author, and the new creations are licensed under identical terms