How Does a Kid Get Tetanus When They Have No Visible Wounds?

They were unvaccinated...

With all the talk lately about measles and flu, it is easy to forget that there are other vaccine preventable diseases.

The recent report of a 10-year-old child with tetanus in Minnesota will hopefully serve as a reminder.

How Does a Kid Get Tetanus When They Have No Visible Wounds?

After reading the report, you are probably wondering, now how does a kid develop tetanus and ended up in the ICU and needing rehab when they had no obvious wounds?

Of course, the easy answer is that they were unvaccinated and were exposed to tetanus.

But again, how were they exposed to tetanus without an obvious or visible wound?

Don’t you need some kind of deep, penetrating wound covered in dirt or feces to get sick with tetanus?

It turns out you don’t!

While you might think of stepping on a rusty nail as the classic way you get tetanus, you can actually get tetanus after almost any contaminated, non-superficial wound, bite, burn, or crush injury (even if it bleeds a lot…).

You can develop tetanus after a small cut.

Now, if this child really didn’t have any of these kinds of wounds, even a very small cut between their toes that they had missed, health experts might ask about other ways folks used to get tetanus in the pre-vaccine era.

Did you know that you could get tetanus from an infected toenail?

You can develop tetanus if you have an ingrown toenail.

Or how about that you could get tetanus from an infected tooth?

You can develop tetanus if you have an infected tooth.

Wait, how does that work.

Whether it is an infected toenail or an infected tooth, these are basically open wounds, and it would be possible for tetanus spores to get in and grow if the person was unvaccinated.

Remember, tetanus spores are basically everywhere.

“This case had no apparent portal of entry; there was no history of trauma, and no site was found on physical examination. However, this is not uncommon; no obvious entry site was reported in approximately 26% of cases in Japan.”

Tomoda et al. on Tetanus without apparent history of trauma

Which is likely why many people don’t remember a wound or “apparent portal of entry” when they get sick with tetanus.

Fortunately, most of us are vaccinated and protected, so tetanus isn’t much of a danger.

They weren’t so lucky in the old days though, when even a splinter could be deadly!

You can develop tetanus after being stuck with a splinter.

Do you want to go back to those days?

Why risk a month in the ICU when the DTaP shot can protect your child against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis?

Or worse.

Remember, those are all life-threatening diseases.

A month in the ICU and then rehab is probably the best outcome if your unvaccinated child develops tetanus.

“…they were doomed to die the most awful death known to medical science, a death the agony of which is probably not paralleled even by the tortures of the Inquisition.”

Fourth of July Injuries and Tetanus. The Seventh Annual Compilation by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Lastly, know that tetanus is a truly horrible disease.

Don’t let your kids get tetanus.

References

Outbreak News Today. Minnesota officials report tetanus case in unvaccinated child in 2024. https://substack.com/home/post/p-158125595

Tomoda Y, Kagawa S, Kurata S, Nakatake N, Tanaka K. Tetanus without apparent history of trauma. J Gen Fam Med. 2018 Jan 18;19(2):61-62. doi: 10.1002/jgf2.153. PMID: 29600132; PMCID: PMC5867140.

Fourth of July Injuries and Tetanus. The Seventh Annual Compilation by the Journal of the American Medical Association. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009610230