Tetanus

We've recently had two baboon deaths as the result of tetanus, so I decided to write a bit about it here.

Tetanus is caused by the anaerobic bacteria Clostridium tetanii and it is found in the soil here, where it enters the body via a wound and proliferates upon the wound closing. The bacteria releases a toxin which attacks the muscles, causing stiffness. The victim is unable to feed himself or move at all and must be constantly under sedation to relieve muscle spasms. Tetanus is fatal unless treated with Tetavax, and usually only 40% survive after painful suffering. Each treatment of a tetanus case costs a minimum of R500, which is actually quite expensive here. I've seen this and it is incredibly sad. Tetanus is a big problem here and I would hate for a baboon I know from the babies to end up like that.

I'm making this public service announcement in case anyone would like to help! Tetavax costs R72 and each baboon needs four shots, and initial dose, a second after a month, a third after another month, and the last after a year. This protects a baboon for 10 years.

Many troops are unprotected against tetanus because due to misinformation, prior to 2007 individuals were given only one shot. Presently all babies that come into the center receive the full course of the vaccination. The large number of individuals not vaccinated and the costs to vaccinate new orphans makes it difficult without help.

CARE has a "Sponsor a Hok" scheme which gives people the chance to sponsor the Tetavax course for a troop or individual baboon. The cost of an individual (a 'one-one' separated in their own hok next to a troop) includes the price of 4 darts (R120 each) as being in a single cage, they are unlikely to be retrieved. The sponsorship of a one-one individual is R768 (just over $100). The cost of sponsoring a troop varies depending on how many baboons make up a troop and includes the cost of one dart for every 5 troop members for each round of Tetavax (ie. 4 darts for every five members), so anywhere from R2000-R8000. There are 24 troops and 78 individuals that are at risk for tetanus and still need Tetavax.

With a sponsorship you will receive a troop profile, listing the individuals with their info and stories. Please help me help the baboons!! Contact me if anyone is interested.

THANKS EVERYONE!


*$1=R6.7 south African rand.

Post Created Apr 13, 2011 4:01:45 PM

Yesterday, there were elephants right by our river; they couldn't have been more then 50 yards from us, but we watched them from a little ways up a hill. All of a sudden four of them decided to swim across the river. It was awesome. They put their whole heads under as they reached the deeper parts of the river and continued to swim to the far bank where two of them decided to aquatically copulate as the two others struggled up the bank. The elephants actually made quite a bit of noise swimming across, which I found surprising because they are so stealthy on land. A little later, Mandy, Elin, and I decided to see if any more were still around and sure enough there was one right in front of us on our side of the beach. This guy seemed to decide not to swim across. As we were sitting on our slope, we could here some rustling in the bushes nearby. We guessed that it was another elephant, but it wasn't moving much and it was still pretty quiet, and we weren't quite sure where on the slope it was in relation to us, so we continued to sit quietly watching the one at the river's edge. After a while longer we decided we had better check what the rustling might be. Sure enough there was a HUGE elephant just out of sight of where we were sitting, definitely closer than we thought, and the same height up the slope as we were. There would have been no escaping it had it decided to charge us through those bushes. But we moved so we could actually see the ele which turned out to be a tad closer, like 30 meters, and after a few minutes it looked up and flapped it's ears as a sign of anger so we quickly scurried back. We watched a few minutes longer as it walked away in the bushes. All in all it was an AWESOME two hours of elephants. Unfortunately I did not have my camera, or the energy to run and get it, during all this so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Last week I did manage to make my Apple Puff Pastries! Everyone seemed to really like them. We found an ingenious way of coring the apples quickly by using a power drill. No joke. This I do have pictures of to prove it. When in Rome...

The weather has started to cool down to the point where I have been wearing a sweatshirt most mornings and get to wear sweatpants finally to sleep in, which I am a little too excited about. We've had to de-worm the baby baboons, which means putting some stuff in their morning milk, but this makes them poop A LOT throughout the day. I know you would want to hear about that so...

I other good news, I found a friend to go to Namibia with!! For the first two weeks of June my friend Adam and I will be road tripping and camping around Namibia. It's an awesome country with German-like towns, an amazing game park, a cool coast line with lots of sea lions, and incredible sand dunes. We've been pretty excited about it. Me especially because I've been thinking about traveling there for months and months. So far we've only bought our plane tickets over there, but we're working on it. It's going to be awesome.

I also FINALLY contacted the woman who runs the orangutan sanctuary in Indonesia with whom I've been playing phone tag with for weeks, and we had a brief little interview. Seems like I've got an internship set up there starting in August. So everyone who asked me what I'm doing after this, I now have an answer! Working with orangutans in Indonesia!!

As sun sets over the bush, it's time to take in the babies to sleep so I must end this post here!