INTRODUCTION Sri Lanka has a population of 21 million and about 80,000 snakebites occur annually. However, there are limited data on health seeking behavior following bites. We investigated the effects of snakebite and envenoming on health seeking behavior in Sri Lanka. METHODS In a community-based island-wide survey conducted in Sri Lanka 44,136 households were sampled using a multistage clu...

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE Every year between 1.2 and 5.5 million people worldwide are victims of snakebites, with about 400,000 left permanently injured. In Central America an estimated 5500 snakebite cases are reported by health centres, but this is likely to be an underestimate due to unreported cases in rural regions. The aim of this study is to review the medicinal plants used traditio...

Snakebite remains a neglected medical problem of the developing world with up to 125,000 deaths each year despite more than a century of calls to improve snakebite prevention and care. An estimated 75% of fatalities from snakebite occur outside the hospital setting. Because phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity is an important component of venom toxicity, we sought candidate PLA2 inhibitors by direc...

BACKGROUND To identify the factors associated with the development of post-snakebite compartment syndrome (PSCS) in snakebite patients and to analyze the clinical prognosis of these patients. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients who presented to our institution with snakebites from March 2009 to December 2012. The clinical data, hospital course and outcome were ...

Sri Lanka is a tropical developing island nation that endures significant economic and medical burden as a result of snakebite envenomation, having not only a high prevalence of envenomations, but also one of the highest incidence rates (200 snakebites/100,000 people/year) of venomous snakebite in the world (Kasturiratne et al., 2005). Ironically, the very snakes responsible for this human morb...

Background Snakebite has recently been declared a global public health emergency. Empirical data showing the true burden of snakebite is lacking. Treatment with specific antivenoms is considered the only cure. However, several factors have led to an ongoing antivenom crisis. This study offers recommendations concerning the improvement of antivenom access and control, by providing an overview of...

OBJECTIVES To study the clinical profile of snake envenomation in a tertiary referral north Indian hospital. METHODS Retrospective case note analysis of all cases of snakebite admitted to the medical emergency from January 1997 to December 2001. RESULTS Of a total of 142 cases of snakebite there were 86 elapid bites presenting with neuroparalytic symptoms and 52 viper bites having haemostat...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Coagulopathy is a common complication of snakebite, but there is little information on the clinical importance of coagulopathy. We analyzed the characteristics of coagulopathy after envenomation. METHODS Ninety-eight patients who experienced snakebite were enrolled in this study. We divided all the patients into three groups by the ISTH DIC scoring system: the normal, simple c...

OBJECTIVE To describe the epidemiology of snakebite in the "Top End" of the Northern Territory, and the envenoming syndromes of individual snake species. STUDY DESIGN Prospective collection of clinical data and snake identity. SETTING Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH), a 300-bed tertiary hospital servicing a population of 140,000 spread over 522 561 km2. PATIENTS All patients with bites by conf...

BACKGROUND Many authors have claimed that snakebite risk is associated with human population density, human activities, and snake behavior. Here we analyzed whether environmental suitability of vipers can be used as an indicator of snakebite risk. We tested several hypotheses to explain snakebite incidence, through the construction of models incorporating both environmental suitability and soci...