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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 07/10/2006 : 21:04:03
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Here's a PLoS Medicine article, "Confronting the Neglected Problem of Snake Bite Envenoming: The Need for a Global Partnership," by José María Gutiérrez, R. David G. Theakston, and David A. Warrell, that our Filthy at least may find interesting: quote:
Envenoming resulting from snake bites is an important public health hazard in many regions, particularly in tropical and subtropical countries [1–3]. Although antivenoms are being produced by various laboratories in every continent, the burden of snake bite envenoming—causing both morbidity and mortality—still has a great impact on the population and on health-care systems, especially in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America [4]. Unfortunately, public health authorities, nationally and internationally, have given little attention to this problem, relegating snake bite envenoming to the category of a major neglected disease of the 21st century.
The Global Burden of Snake Bite Envenoming
In the tropical developing countries where snake bites occur most commonly, there are few reliable incidence data. One serious attempt to assess global snake bite mortality was the survey undertaken by Swaroop and Grabb in 1954, which was based largely on hospital admissions [3]. Subsequent work has revealed gross underreporting of deaths in this study—for example, in Nigeria [5] and Thailand [1,6]. One reason is that records of patients treated by traditional methods are missing from official databased statistics, and deaths reported at the hamlet or district level may not be sent on to ministry headquarters. Accepting these limitations, the fragmentary evidence available suggests that several million bites and envenomings occur worldwide each year, with tens of thousands of deaths [2,3].
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I'd no idea that snake bites were this huge a problem, worldwide. The article continues here.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2006 : 07:07:57 [Permalink]
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quote:
I'd no idea that snake bites were this huge a problem, worldwide. The article continues here.
I am not al all sure that they are. The vast majority of serpent envenomations are are not fatal even if left untreated -- my own collection of bites as an example. I have only had one treated.
These envenomations, as said in the article, are among the most under-documented injuries in the world. One reason is that almost all bites occur in remote areas, more often than not, far from treatment. If the guy survives it, he's happy enough just to get the pain over with and on with his life. If not, he is likely to be buried with little fanfare and no autopsy.
And it is worth asking: how many deaths attributed to bites were actually something else? And how many bites were never detected?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2006 : 22:12:37 [Permalink]
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| Venom ER certainly shows a lot of Rattler bites in the USA. But I've only known one person to get a bite (growing up in LA) and he stuck his finger in a jar with the snake. All but a few breeds of snakes will slither away if they detect you first AFAIK. |
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