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An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies

India suffers the highest incidence of snakebite envenomation (SBE) in the world. Rural communities within India and other countries have long-held cultural beliefs surrounding snakes and SBE treatments, with snake statues present in numerous Hindu temples. While most cultural beliefs are well respe...

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Autores principales: Senthilkumaran, Subramanian, Arathisenthil, S. V., Williams, Jarred, Williams, Harry F., Thirumalaikolundusubramanian, Ponniah, Patel, Ketan, Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9787415/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36548714
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins14120817
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author Senthilkumaran, Subramanian
Arathisenthil, S. V.
Williams, Jarred
Williams, Harry F.
Thirumalaikolundusubramanian, Ponniah
Patel, Ketan
Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
author_facet Senthilkumaran, Subramanian
Arathisenthil, S. V.
Williams, Jarred
Williams, Harry F.
Thirumalaikolundusubramanian, Ponniah
Patel, Ketan
Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
author_sort Senthilkumaran, Subramanian
collection PubMed
description India suffers the highest incidence of snakebite envenomation (SBE) in the world. Rural communities within India and other countries have long-held cultural beliefs surrounding snakes and SBE treatments, with snake statues present in numerous Hindu temples. While most cultural beliefs are well respected and do not affect anyone, some people worship live venomous snakes without any safety precautions. Moreover, they practice various inappropriate first aid and traditional treatments that exacerbate SBE-induced complications. We report an unusual case of SBE on the tongue of a patient who was bitten while worshipping Russell’s viper following the advice of an astrologer based on the appearance of a snake in the patient’s dream. Following the bite, the tongue was deeply incised by the priest as a first aid to mitigate SBE-induced complications. The patient suffered profuse bleeding and swelling of the tongue resulting in difficulties in intubating them. The patient regained consciousness after antivenom administration, intranasal ventilation, and blood removal from the mouth. The tongue underwent extensive surgery to restore movement and function. This report advises caution to those undertaking the extremely risky practice of worshipping live snakes and emphasises the urgent need to develop and enforce policies to mitigate such actions and educate rural communities.
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spelling pubmed-97874152022-12-24 An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies Senthilkumaran, Subramanian Arathisenthil, S. V. Williams, Jarred Williams, Harry F. Thirumalaikolundusubramanian, Ponniah Patel, Ketan Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel Toxins (Basel) Case Report India suffers the highest incidence of snakebite envenomation (SBE) in the world. Rural communities within India and other countries have long-held cultural beliefs surrounding snakes and SBE treatments, with snake statues present in numerous Hindu temples. While most cultural beliefs are well respected and do not affect anyone, some people worship live venomous snakes without any safety precautions. Moreover, they practice various inappropriate first aid and traditional treatments that exacerbate SBE-induced complications. We report an unusual case of SBE on the tongue of a patient who was bitten while worshipping Russell’s viper following the advice of an astrologer based on the appearance of a snake in the patient’s dream. Following the bite, the tongue was deeply incised by the priest as a first aid to mitigate SBE-induced complications. The patient suffered profuse bleeding and swelling of the tongue resulting in difficulties in intubating them. The patient regained consciousness after antivenom administration, intranasal ventilation, and blood removal from the mouth. The tongue underwent extensive surgery to restore movement and function. This report advises caution to those undertaking the extremely risky practice of worshipping live snakes and emphasises the urgent need to develop and enforce policies to mitigate such actions and educate rural communities. MDPI 2022-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9787415/ /pubmed/36548714 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins14120817 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Case Report
Senthilkumaran, Subramanian
Arathisenthil, S. V.
Williams, Jarred
Williams, Harry F.
Thirumalaikolundusubramanian, Ponniah
Patel, Ketan
Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies
title An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies
title_full An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies
title_fullStr An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies
title_full_unstemmed An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies
title_short An Unnecessary Russell’s Viper Bite on the Tongue Due to Live Snake Worship and Dangerous First Aid Emphasise the Urgent Need for Stringent Policies
title_sort unnecessary russell’s viper bite on the tongue due to live snake worship and dangerous first aid emphasise the urgent need for stringent policies
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9787415/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36548714
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins14120817
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