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venomous snake fatalities worldwide
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by tigers9 on November 3, 2008
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This is bizarre (typical for news/media?), 1st article claims 90,000 people die worldwide by venomous snake bite, the 2nd article claims 20,000. Who do u believe, Santa Claus???
Z
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/snake+bite+death+toll+revealed/2737207
Snake bite death toll revealed
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Last Modified: 04 Nov 2008
Source: PA News
Poisonous snakes could be killing more than 90,000 people a year around the world, new research has shown.
India has the biggest snake bite death toll, with around 11,000 lives lost. In total, between 1.2 million and 5.5 million snake bites may occur annually, scientists have estimated. Only a quarter of these result in "envenoming", the injection of poison into the blood stream from a snake's fangs.
Snake bites pose an important yet neglected threat to public health, according to the researchers led by Professor Janaka de Silver, from the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka.
The global health burden of snake bites was assessed by pooling together available data on envenomings and deaths from more than 100 countries in 21 geographical regions.
A total of 58 countries, including the Republic of Ireland, were identified as having no record of snake bites. In some other parts of the world, notably sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people bitten and killed by poisonous snakes was thought to be greatly under-estimated.
Many victims in these regions do not seek or get medical help and their deaths go unrecorded, said the scientists writing in the online journal PLoS Medicine. Studies suggested that only 8.5% of snake bite victims in Nigeria and 27% in Kenya sought hospital treatment.
The researchers calculated that globally, at least 421,000 envenomings and 20,000 snake bite deaths occur each year. However, the figures could be as high as 1,841,000 envenomings and 94,000 deaths.
Southern Asia bore the brunt of the deaths. In this part of the world, venomous snakes such as cobras and vipers killed 14,000 people each year. India, with its billion-strong population, suffered 11,000 deaths alone - more than any other country in the world.
Although a quarter of all snake bites occurred in Central and South America, relatively few resulted in deaths compared with other high incidence areas, the researchers reported. This was probably due to better systems for handling snake bites and the availability of antivenom.
The scientists concluded: "Snake bites cause considerable morbidity (illness) and mortality worldwide. The highest burden exists in South Asia, South-East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa."
These news feeds are provided by an independent third party and Channel 4 is not responsible or liable to you for the same.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/04/2409661.htm
Snake bites claim 20,000 lives a year: study
Posted 4 hours 36 minutes ago
More than 400,000 people are poisoned by snakebites worldwide each year and 20,000 of them die, with most cases occurring in the poorest countries, researchers say.
While Australia has over 100 different species of land snakes, 12 whose bite is deadly, it does not make the list of countries with high snakebite rates.
In an article published in United States-based open access Public Library of Science Medicine, the researchers said the burden from snakebites was highest in South and South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Data on snakebites is far from comprehensive as most of them happen in places with poor healthcare systems and where record-keeping is generally poor or non-existent.
For this study, the researchers trawled through 3,256 published articles and extracted data on 68 countries.
They said, according to a conservative estimate, there are 421,000 cases of envenoming, or venom delivered through biting, each year and which lead to at least 20,000 deaths.
But the actual figures could be several times higher.
"These figures may be as high as 1,841,000 envenomings and 94,000 deaths," the team wrote.
"Based on the fact that envenoming occurs in about one in every four snakebites, between 1.2 million and 5.5 million snakebites could occur annually."
India has the highest figures, with 81,000 envenomings and 11,000 deaths each year, followed by Sri Lanka with 33,000 envenomings, Vietnam and Brazil with 30,000 each, Mexico with 28,000 and Nepal with 20,000.
The researchers stressed that snakebite was a badly neglected problem in many countries as they often go unreported.
"Many victims do not seek hospital treatment and prefer traditional remedies. Some may die at home, with their deaths unrecorded," they wrote.
"Studies from rural Nigeria and Kenya have reported that only 8.5 per cent and 27 per cent of snakebite victims, respectively, sought hospital treatment."
- Reuters
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RE: venomous snake fatalities worldwide
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by FSB on November 4, 2008
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I couldn't say for sure, Z, but based on a lifetime of experience with snake exaggerations, I'd go with the 20,000 figure.
"Snake bites pose an important yet neglected threat to public health," it says. Really? I'd say the threat to public health posed by VENOMOUS snakes is miniscule next to that posed by their main prey animals, with all of their zoonotic diseases and ability to bring down aircraft with their gnawing teeth. "Rats on a Plane" -- now that would be a scary movie!
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RE: venomous snake fatalities worldwide
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by yoyoing on November 4, 2008
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The numbers are extrapolated in both reports, so "claims" might be a bit strong. Actually both manuscripts were interesting reads, and do represent the ambiguous nature of life science.
What is interesting for me is how safe we are in the USA by comparison, and yet we are having laws passed in the name of public safety that have no basis in reality.
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