Clinico-Epidemiological Profile of Snake Bite Cases in Western Nepal -

Background: Snake bite is a significant public health problem in many countries with large number of cases of envenoming and deaths being reported, although it is difficult to define the actual number of snake bite victims. Objectives: Clinical and Epidemiological aspects of human snake bite amongst the victims admitted to emergency ward of Manipal Teaching Hospital Pokhara, Nepal was studied. Methods: This retrospective hospital record based study involved a total of 77 snake bite victims admitted to emergency ward of hospital during 1st November 2004 to 31st October 2005. Information on demographic data, identification of the snake, time and place of bite, symptoms of snakebite, time lapsed between bite and seeking treatment and snakebite case management and outcome was collected. SPSS windows version 14.0 software was used to analyze the data. Percentages were applied to find out the results. Results: Majority of the victims were from Kaski district (79.2%). Higher proportion of victims were aged between 10-59 years (80.5%) and were males (55.8%). Majority of the victims were farmers (37.7%) and illiterate (58.4%). Most of the snake bite cases were reported in the months of June to September (84.4%). The most common place of bite was field (36.4%) and the most common site of bite was foot (55.8%). Most of the snakes could not be identified (59.7%). The symptom commonly encountered was cellulitis (46.8%). Majority of victims were applied tourniquet as first aid measure (59.7%). Time lapsed for seeking hospital treatment was half to 1 hour in most (29.9%) of the cases. Majority of the individuals recovered after snake bite (89.6%). Conclusions: Public health interventions should focus on improving victims\\\' rapid transport to adequate treatment centers for anti snake venom.