Today, September 19th, the "International Day of Attention to Snakebite Envenoming" is celebrated.
The date, created by a coalition of organizations working for global health and tropical medicine (BRASIL, 2022), aims to raise awareness about the huge (but still little recognized) global impact of snakebites.
The United Nations - UN, through the World Health Organization - WHO @who (WHO, 2020), established snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease due to several reasons: difficulty of access and efficacy of antivenoms, underreporting, quality of information on deaths and others.
According to WHO (WHO 2022), "4.5 to 5.4 million people are bitten by snakes annually: of these, 1.8-2.7 million develop clinical illnesses and 81,000 to 138,000 die from complications.
In Brazil (BRASIL, 2021), the average number of snakebite occurrences in recent years is approximately 28,000 notifications per year and 116 deaths per year.
REFERENCES
BRASIL. Ministry of Health. (2021). Neglected tropical diseases. Epidemiological Bulletin, Brasília, special issue. Mar, 2021
BRASIL. Ministry of Health. (2022). 9/19 - International Day of Attention to Snakebite Envenoming. Available at: https://bvsms.saude.gov.br/19-9-dia-internacional-de-atencao-aos-acidentes-ofidicos/. Access date: 19/09/2022
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION - WHO. (2020). Control of neglected tropical diseases (2020). Geneva: WHO. Available at: http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/en/. Access date: 14/01/2020.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION - WHO. (2022). Snakebite envenoming. Available at: https://www.who.int/health-topics/snakebite#tab=tab_1. Access date: 19/09/2022.
