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Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey
BACKGROUND: India has long been thought to have more snakebites than any other country. However, inadequate hospital-based reporting has resulted in estimates of total annual snakebite mortality ranging widely from about 1,300 to 50,000. We calculated direct estimates of snakebite mortality from a n...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2011
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21532748 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001018 |
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author | Mohapatra, Bijayeeni Warrell, David A. Suraweera, Wilson Bhatia, Prakash Dhingra, Neeraj Jotkar, Raju M. Rodriguez, Peter S. Mishra, Kaushik Whitaker, Romulus Jha, Prabhat |
author_facet | Mohapatra, Bijayeeni Warrell, David A. Suraweera, Wilson Bhatia, Prakash Dhingra, Neeraj Jotkar, Raju M. Rodriguez, Peter S. Mishra, Kaushik Whitaker, Romulus Jha, Prabhat |
author_sort | Mohapatra, Bijayeeni |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: India has long been thought to have more snakebites than any other country. However, inadequate hospital-based reporting has resulted in estimates of total annual snakebite mortality ranging widely from about 1,300 to 50,000. We calculated direct estimates of snakebite mortality from a national mortality survey. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a nationally representative study of 123,000 deaths from 6,671 randomly selected areas in 2001–03. Full-time, non-medical field workers interviewed living respondents about all deaths. The underlying causes were independently coded by two of 130 trained physicians. Discrepancies were resolved by anonymous reconciliation or, failing that, by adjudication. A total of 562 deaths (0.47% of total deaths) were assigned to snakebites. Snakebite deaths occurred mostly in rural areas (97%), were more common in males (59%) than females (41%), and peaked at ages 15–29 years (25%) and during the monsoon months of June to September. This proportion represents about 45,900 annual snakebite deaths nationally (99% CI 40,900 to 50,900) or an annual age-standardised rate of 4.1/100,000 (99% CI 3.6–4.5), with higher rates in rural areas (5.4/100,000; 99% CI 4.8–6.0), and with the highest state rate in Andhra Pradesh (6.2). Annual snakebite deaths were greatest in the states of Uttar Pradesh (8,700), Andhra Pradesh (5,200), and Bihar (4,500). CONCLUSIONS: Snakebite remains an underestimated cause of accidental death in modern India. Because a large proportion of global totals of snakebites arise from India, global snakebite totals might also be underestimated. Community education, appropriate training of medical staff and better distribution of antivenom, especially to the 13 states with the highest prevalence, could reduce snakebite deaths in India. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-3075236 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-30752362011-04-29 Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey Mohapatra, Bijayeeni Warrell, David A. Suraweera, Wilson Bhatia, Prakash Dhingra, Neeraj Jotkar, Raju M. Rodriguez, Peter S. Mishra, Kaushik Whitaker, Romulus Jha, Prabhat PLoS Negl Trop Dis Research Article BACKGROUND: India has long been thought to have more snakebites than any other country. However, inadequate hospital-based reporting has resulted in estimates of total annual snakebite mortality ranging widely from about 1,300 to 50,000. We calculated direct estimates of snakebite mortality from a national mortality survey. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a nationally representative study of 123,000 deaths from 6,671 randomly selected areas in 2001–03. Full-time, non-medical field workers interviewed living respondents about all deaths. The underlying causes were independently coded by two of 130 trained physicians. Discrepancies were resolved by anonymous reconciliation or, failing that, by adjudication. A total of 562 deaths (0.47% of total deaths) were assigned to snakebites. Snakebite deaths occurred mostly in rural areas (97%), were more common in males (59%) than females (41%), and peaked at ages 15–29 years (25%) and during the monsoon months of June to September. This proportion represents about 45,900 annual snakebite deaths nationally (99% CI 40,900 to 50,900) or an annual age-standardised rate of 4.1/100,000 (99% CI 3.6–4.5), with higher rates in rural areas (5.4/100,000; 99% CI 4.8–6.0), and with the highest state rate in Andhra Pradesh (6.2). Annual snakebite deaths were greatest in the states of Uttar Pradesh (8,700), Andhra Pradesh (5,200), and Bihar (4,500). CONCLUSIONS: Snakebite remains an underestimated cause of accidental death in modern India. Because a large proportion of global totals of snakebites arise from India, global snakebite totals might also be underestimated. Community education, appropriate training of medical staff and better distribution of antivenom, especially to the 13 states with the highest prevalence, could reduce snakebite deaths in India. Public Library of Science 2011-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC3075236/ /pubmed/21532748 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001018 Text en Mohapatra et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Mohapatra, Bijayeeni Warrell, David A. Suraweera, Wilson Bhatia, Prakash Dhingra, Neeraj Jotkar, Raju M. Rodriguez, Peter S. Mishra, Kaushik Whitaker, Romulus Jha, Prabhat Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey |
title | Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey |
title_full | Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey |
title_fullStr | Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey |
title_full_unstemmed | Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey |
title_short | Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey |
title_sort | snakebite mortality in india: a nationally representative mortality survey |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3075236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21532748 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001018 |
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