Retrospective Autopsy-based Profiling of Fatal Snake Bite Cases Brought to Tertiary Care Teaching Institute of Haryana

Abstract

Snakebite is a major public health problem throughout the world especially in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Snake venom is  probably the oldest known poison to mankind and has been described in oldest medical writings and myths. Since the dawn of civilization,  snakes have inspired a mystic feeling of good and evil in human mind. An authentic measure of the global burden of snakebite envenoming  remains obscure despite several attempts to estimate it and, apart from a few countries, reliable figures on incidence, morbidity, and  mortality remains elusive. This retrospective autopsy-based observational study was carried out in the Department of Forensic Medicine  of a tertiary care teaching institute of Haryana during 8-year time span from 2010 to 2017. A total of 55 fatal cases of snake bites which  included 38 males and 17 females were used to study the trend of disease. As observed in the study, maximum cases were from 21-30 years  age group of rural background having male preponderance and snake bite related deaths peaked during monsoon season. The other  observations noticed were, hands and feet were widely getting affected due to snake bite while swelling and cellulitis were the commonest  findings seen at the local site of bite. Maximum cases had single set of fang marks seen at the site of bite while there were some cases with  no visible marks. A discussion on the findings of our study could be used to formulate a rough idea of burden of this neglected disease in  Haryana state and there is an urgent need to educate the population regarding the risks and create awareness regarding seeking timely  treatment for the same.