Oxygen administered under high pressure may also be useful. Stages and progress Typically the first symptoms are felt eight to twelve days after infection, though sometimes they develop in as few as five days or as many as a hundred or more days. As tetanus becomes more advanced, the muscles of the neck and face begin to spasm . Breathing may become difficult or impossible during seizures . Prevention Advance vaccination against tetanus is the surest way to prevent the disease.
Infants preferably get the first of five immunizing injections when they are some two months old.
Their next shots should given at four months, six months, eighteen months, and finally between four and six years of age. Adults should have their vaccinations renewed every five years. Although tetanus is seldom a problem in the United States today, and then primarily for elderly people who have let their vaccinations lapse, it is one of the major health problems in developing countries. There it affects more than half a million infants, who develop tetanus and die as a result of infection when their umbilical cords are cut under unsterile conditions.