Unicef aims to eliminate tetanus in mothers and babies by 2012

The global children’s agency Unicef has launched a new vaccination drive to try to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus by 2012. “It’s possible to do it,” Francois Gasse, Unicef’s senior health specialist, told reporters.

In 2004 the disease killed an estimated 128 250 babies and up to 30 000 mothers, almost all in 47 poor countries in Africa and Asia.

Dr Gasse said that these figures represented a sharp reduction from the 800 000 deaths of babies and 60 000 to 90 000 of mothers each year in the mid-1980s.

He pointed out that in the past decade 11 …