Characteristic tetanus infection in disaster-affected areas: case study of the Yogyakarta earthquakes in Indonesia

BACKGROUND: Tetanus is an infectious disease caused by the contamination of wounds from bacteria that live in soil. The tetanus mortality rate remains high in developing countries affected by natural disasters. Whether the socio-demography and geographical conditions may influence the tetanus treatment outcome on the earthquake situation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia has not been investigated. FINDINGS: We present 26 tetanus patients who were admitted to eight hospitals following the earthquakes that occurred on May, 27, 2006, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The independent variables were age, gender, distance, admission, hospitalization, and type of hospital with the dependent variable surviving or perishing. Data were analyzed by logistic regression methods on SPSS 17.0. The distance from the patient's place of residence to the hospital were obtained and analyzed by using geospatial tools MapInfo 7.8 SCP and Global Mapper 7. Eight of the 26 patients were dead (30.8%) and statistical results showed that the distance (OR = 1.740, 95% CI = 1.068–2.835) and type of hospital (OR = 0.067, 95% CI = 0.001–3.520) were significant predictors of death. CONCLUSION: Our findings show that in order to reduce the mortality rates, performing triage systems based on the distance and type of hospital priority for internally displaced persons could be proposed as well as making provisions for the generally old population in order to prevent an outbreak of tetanus following earthquakes in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.