Community Participation of Scorpion Stings. Control and Prevention on Poisoning by Scorpion Envenoming (1992-1999)
Salazar, Lucía
Secretaría de Salud, Jalisco, México 1992-1999.
Summary: Although there is not a complete record on all cases of scorpion stun poisoning, it is more than evident that is a problem on public health in Mexico and particularly on Jalisco. Given this situation, starting 1992 a two stages project investigation was launched. First stage objective was to identify the epidemiological view on Jalisco and to set the strategies on how community participation can help on scorpion stuns attention that first cause death and secondly to identify the rate incidence. The present work is the result of different strategies developed as part of the Scorpion Poisoning Prevention and Control Program on Jalisco for the past eight years.
Results: Jalisco is located on the center-west region in Mexico, it is divided in 124 municipals on which 54% of them has scorpion species with high poison toxicity, 43% has scorpion species with moderated poison toxicity and only 3% with low poison toxicity. In 1998 Jalisco was ranged second nation wide on the number of cases with 27,580 and sixth place by incidence rate (4.283 by 100,000 population). The state rate was ascendant during the first years of the 90's and during the past years that trend rate has been stabilizing. On 1991 the rate was of 89 by 100,000 and by 1999 the rate was 428. We consider that this behavior is associated with the continue increase on the epidemiological surveillance and coverage.
83% of the reported death in Jalisco is happening on children under 5 years old, that's why we have set strategies that allow us to diminish the death incidence. Back until 1992 more than 50% of deaths occurred out of health services locations. During that year we began the first project in the country in order to implement this volunteer reporters program. This program consists on training volunteers and distribution of anti-toxic serum on locations that did not have health services. That strategy has been extended to hole Jalisco state and now is implemented on the 124 municipals (counties). This allows us to reduce on 76% the deaths caused by Scorpion stun. Between 1996 and 1999 23% of the deaths occurred on location that did not have health services. From the 27,342 reported cases in Jalisco during 1998, 64% were reported by the Secretaria de Salud; from this cases 27% were treated on the place where the incident occurred. 64% were treated on a primary health center, only 9% were treated at a Hospital level.
Conclusions: Jalisco is a highly risk for poisoning on scorpion stun, mainly on the rural area. The increase on the incidence is associated with high epidemiological surveillance and coverage. Currently 90% of the cases are treated by volunteers or primary health cares centers. This program has allowed us to reduce the number of deaths incidents on 76%. We are still need to work on increasing the preventive actions in order to reduce the incident rates and expand our coverage to inform the population to request immediate attention on scorpion stuns incidents.
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
08 Oct 2002 -
Date of issue
Dec 2001
