Epidemiological Analysis on Neonatal Tetanus Cases from 1999 through 2004 in Shaoxing City

Objective This analysis was conducted to better understand the epidemiological character istics of neonatal tetanus(NT)in Shaoxing city in order to provide background information for the formU lation of strategies to contol and eradicate the disease Methods Descriptive study was used to statisti cally analyze the data collected from the NT-specific reporting system and case study from 1999 to 2004 Results Statistics showed that the incidence of NT fluctuated between 0.15％ and 0.65‰，exhibiting a general tendency of increasing There were 2 counties (districts) where the incidence was equal to or more thanl‰ The mortality of NT ranged from ll.11％ to 37.50％。It was observed that Yuecheng district and Shaoxing county where economics were relativdy developed were dominated by the disease，with no seasonal Of the 78 eases diagnosed，floating population accounted for 89.74％ and males were more affected than females，with the ratio being 2.12:I most cases developed clinieal manifestations 58 days after birth 83.33％ of the cases were infants deivered at hotne with the help of an untrained midwife And all the mothers had no definite inoculation histoev of tetanus toxoid Conclusion The dominant factors contributing to NT involve old midwifery，lack of tetanus toxoid injection before labor and delivery，and population floating it is bdieved that eradication of NT can be achieved through im-proving sdf-care among pregnant women，promoting hospital delivery，inoculating high risk groups with TT and strengthening training of new midwifery