A year after eliminating polio, India has scored another public health victory. Following a 15-year campaign, the country has virtually eliminated tetanus as a killer of newborns and mothers.

Tetanus, caused by a bacterium common in soil and animal dung, usually infects newborns when the umbilical cord is cut with a dirty blade. Mothers often receive the infection by giving birth on dirty surfaces or being aided by midwives with unwashed hands.

The disease — also known as lockjaw, after its muscle spasms — usually sets in about a week after a birth and is invariably fatal if not promptly treated. Fifteen years ago, the World Health Organization estimated that almost 800,000 newborns died of tetanus each year; now fewer than 50,000 do.

But the effort to reduce tetanus has gone slowly. The World Health Assembly — the annual gathering of the world’s health ministers in Geneva — originally set 1995 as the target date for its global elimination as a health threat.