Infectious Agent Clostridium tetani.
Symptoms consist of stiffness followed by painful muscular contractions.
These usually begin near the site of injury and often become generalised. Tetanus may occur after a trivial or inapparent injury. Case fatality rate is 30 to 90 per cent, varying inversely with the incubation period. It is a clinically compatible illness without other apparent cause, with or without a history of injury, and with or without laboratory evidence of the organism or its toxin. Public Health Significance and Occurrence Tetanus is now rare in this community and usually reflects waning immunity in the elderly.