Tetanus
The infection: Tetanus, caused by Clostridium tetani bacteria entering the body through an open wound or cut.
Symptoms and treatment: The most common and infamous sign of tetanus is lockjaw, or a tightening of the jaw muscles. Others include sudden muscle spasms, painful stiffness, and trouble swallowing. Sometimes, the involuntary contractions are so brutal that it leads to broken bones. Death tends to happen when people lose the ability to breathe on their own.
Threat potential: Even with antibiotic and antibody treatment, roughly one in ten people die from tetanus infection. And since tetanus spores are everywhere in the soil and surrounding environment, there’s always some risk of infection from getting your skin punctured or tore open outside. Thankfully, there’s a widely available and effective childhood vaccine (and booster in adults) that has dramatically lowered cases and deaths in recent decades. But roughly 37,000 people a year worldwide continue to die from it, and there’s still the occasional case in America too.
