Epidemiology of clinical complications of accidents caused by venomous animals in Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Tomaz, Valentina Ribeiro
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Soares, Marcelo, Bonfada, Diego
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng; por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Epidemiologia e Controle de Infecção
• Texto Completo: https://online.unisc.br/seer/index.php/epidemiologia/article/view/17696
• topic: Animales venenosos; Epidemiología; Vigilancia de la salud pública; Notificaciones de enfermedades; Animais venenosos; Epidemiologia; Vigilância em Saúde Pública; Notificações de doenças; Poisonous animals; Epidemiology; Public Health Surveillance; Disease notifications

Background and objectives: Accidents caused by venomous animals, included in the set of Neglected Tropical Diseases, often evolve to local and systemic clinical complications related to increased morbidity and mortality and saturation of health care resources. This study aimed to analyze the epidemiological profile, spatial distribution and temporal trend of clinical complications caused by accidents with venomous animals in Brazil. Methods: This is a quantitative, cross-sectional, observational, epidemiological study of the clinical complications of accidents caused by venomous animals reported to the Notifiable Diseases Information System from 2007 to 2019. Results: Of the 2,164,645 evaluated notifications, 38,934 cases (1.8%) showed complications. We observed a higher proportion of clinical complications (per 1,000 total cases) among men, Indigenous individuals, illiterates, and victims who received care 24 hours after their accidents, and snakebites. We also found a higher proportion of clinical complications among severe cases (198.8), cases treated with serum therapy (45.7), and those that resulted in death (41.8). The annual incidence of complicated cases increased, especially in the Brazilian Southeast region (+67.2%). The proportion of clinical complications is more worrying in the states of Amazonas, Rondônia, Amapá, and Pará. Conclusion: This study found a higher proportion of clinical complications among men, Indigenous people, illiterates, residents of rural areas, victims of snake bites, those who received late medical and hospital care, those who needed serum therapy, and individuals who had death as their outcome. We found a more severe spatial distribution of the annual incidence of complicated cases in the states of Amazonas, Rondônia, Amapá, and Pará, and that the tendency of the annual incidence of clinical complications increased more sharply in the Brazilian Southeast region.