Tetanus Amoung Children before Vaccination

[TonyaW]

I came across this in Google Scholar. It was really the only thing I could find for the US. It seems to prove to me that vaccination is what caused tetanus cases to go down in children. Am I reading this right? Tetanus was more prevalent in children before vaccination, at least in California. I read some other statistics for other countries, like India and the incidence is higher among children too, not just neonates.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1658841/

Does anyone have any other resources I could look at regarding tetanus among children before vaccination?

[13Sandals]

Originally Posted by TonyaW

I came across this in Google Scholar. It was really the only thing I could find for the US. It seems to prove to me that vaccination is what caused tetanus cases to go down in children. Am I reading this right? Tetanus was more prevalent in children before vaccination, at least in California. I read some other statistics for other countries, like India and the incidence is higher among children too, not just neonates.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1658841/

Does anyone have any other resources I could look at regarding tetanus among children before vaccination?

I think the question would be, when was the tetanus vaccine widely used? All I can find is that tetanus vaccine was used for military service starting after 1927, but it wasn't combined with the DTP until the 40's. I'm assuming great uptake in children wouldn't have occurred until the combined vaccine - therefore the article you sight, which only goes to 1931 would not necessarily give much information. of course, antibiotics also came on scene in the 40's, so a decrease in mortality alone wouldn't give us the full picture.
I'm curious too, but several searches have only turned up very vague information about tetanus vaccine use before the DTP. I'll keep trying.