Abstract

Introduction: Deaths resulting from snake envenomation is a public health problem particularly in rural India. Varieties of venomous snakes inhabit in India which take thousands of human lives every year. Establishing the accurate database of snakebite in humans from rural areas of India lackcertainty due to difficulty in the accessibility to health care, lack of proper reporting system, management of snakebite cases by untrained quacks and deaths prior to reaching hospital. Snakebite deaths are routinely subjected to autopsy for compensatory claims from the government as wild animal attacks. The WHO reported that in some countries the degree of under-reporting is greater than 70% especially in rural areas with poor infrastructure. In this context the present study was undertaken in our setup to see the extension of problem incorporated in our area. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive study conducted from January 2014 to December 2017 at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Adichunchanagiri Institute of Medical Sciences, B G Nagara, Mandya district, Karnataka. The incidence and determinants of snakebite related mortality with reference to sex, age, occupation, season, time, place, site of bite, envenomation type and hospital treatment, history prior to the death and cause of death were recorded and the data was analyzed by using Excel 2010 and SPSS (Version 23) software and the results were expressed in percentages. Results: Amongst 23 fatal snakebite cases, 52.2% were males, the vulnerable age group were those in 31-60 years age group, farmers (43.5%) weremostly commonly affected, maximum number of deaths reported during rainy season (39.1%)and occurred during morning hours (30.5%) and most cases (82.6%) suffered outdoor bites. The lower limb (78.3%) was themost common site of biteand most common type of envenomation was vasculotoxic (56.6%). Haemorrhagic shock (47.8%)was the most common cause of death and only 56.5% received treatment in hospital. Conclusion: Snakebite is invariably an accident. As it is an accident, it can be avoided in many cases, but need some judicious, timely precautions to avoid the risk of snakebite and mortality associated with it. People should be made aware of such preventive measures by educating them.

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