West Africa was under the media spotlight this year and rightly after almost 11 000 people died in the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. But although the disease flickers in and out of the public consciousness, a new study shows that another killer was almost as deadly: snakebites. The study, published September 23 in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases , revealed that more than 4,000 people die each year in the same region because of poisonous snake bites. Besides crude mortality, snakebites result in more than 5000 amputations each year, filling up to 10% of hospital beds in some areas. The new findings are based on an analysis of the medical literature for 40 years. The researchers used the data to calculate the number of years lost due to illness, disability or early death of a proxy to estimate the total disease burden and found that 320,000 years of life disability adjusted lost every year in West Africa due to snake bites. This number exceeds the estimates for other tropical diseases, such as infection by nematodes and trypanosomiasis, which often receive more attention. The authors emphasize that antivenin, which is now extremely rare is effective both to treat and prevent snakebites and advocate for funding proportional to the high load.
deadly snakebites as other diseases in West Africa
deadly snakebites as other diseases in West Africa -
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