Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, R.G. Kar Medical College, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
Indian J Public Health. 2014 Jan-Mar;58(1):17-21. doi: 10.4103/0019-557X.128158.
Snake bite is a neglected public health problem in India. Very few community based epidemiological studies in India have been published so far on this issue. Most of the studies were carried out on hospital data. Previous community-based survey in the state revealed that only 22% snake bite victims attended hospitals.
The objective of the present study is to find out the epidemiological profile of snake bite in eight blocks of the South 24-Paraganas district of West Bengal and to explore the under reporting of snake bite deaths in health facilities in that area during the study period.
A retrospective analysis of snake bite data was carried out from a community-based epidemiological survey on 1.9 million populations. This survey was done door-to-door from January 2009 to October 2010 to get epidemiological profile of snake bite of the previous 2 years. The data of direct survey was compared with the official report of the same area to evaluate the hospital-based data with focus on underreporting of snakebite deaths.
A total number of snake bite cases as found in the survey in the study area was 4871. There was a huge gap between the two data (direct survey and official data). Only 7.23% snake bite deaths were officially reported. Only 22.19% of the snake bite victims attended the hospitals. Nearly 65.7% of the snake bite deaths were due to common krait bite, most of them occurring in the months of June to September.
Official reporting system is still having a huge deficiency in India. Snake bite needs to get more attention from the health authority.
在印度，蛇伤是一个被忽视的公共卫生问题。到目前为止，印度很少有基于社区的流行病学研究对此问题进行发表。大多数研究都是基于医院数据进行的。之前在该邦进行的一项基于社区的调查显示，只有 22%的蛇伤受害者前往医院就诊。
本研究的目的是了解西孟加拉邦南 24 帕尔干纳地区八个街区的蛇伤流行病学特征，并探讨该地区在研究期间卫生机构中蛇伤死亡漏报情况。
对一项针对 190 万人口的基于社区的流行病学调查中的蛇伤数据进行回顾性分析。这项调查于 2009 年 1 月至 2010 年 10 月进行，采用挨家挨户的方式，旨在获取过去 2 年的蛇伤流行病学特征。将直接调查数据与同一地区的官方报告进行比较，重点评估医院数据中蛇伤死亡漏报情况。
在所研究地区的调查中，共发现蛇伤病例 4871 例。这两个数据（直接调查和官方数据）之间存在巨大差距。仅报告了 7.23%的蛇伤死亡病例。只有 22.19%的蛇伤受害者前往医院就诊。近 65.7%的蛇伤死亡是由普通眼镜蛇咬伤引起的，大多数发生在 6 月至 9 月。
印度官方报告系统仍存在巨大缺陷。蛇伤需要得到卫生当局的更多关注。
