Ophidic accidents are a serious health problem for tropical countries, because are responsible for the high incidence of morbidity and mortality. PURPOSE: This article describes aspects of snakebite epidemiology in the State of Goiás, Brazil. METHODS: Notifications about the accidents caused by poisonous snakes have been analysed for Government of the State of Goiás (Brazil), Health Department, from 1998 to 2000. RESULTS: In this period, 3261 accidents caused by poisonous snakes have been notified, which represented the average annual incidence rate of 20 to 23/100.000 persons. The vast majority of cases occurred from October to April. The classification of the snake genus had been possible in 2350 cases and the distribution was: Bothrops (78.6%), Crotalus (20.8%) and Micrurus (6%). The age distribution shows that the accidents had been suffered by 20 to 39 year old people with great predominance in males (78%). The anatomical areas more frequently bitten were feet (43.6%), legs (23.2%) and hands (20.1%). At the health center 80% of the patients had been treated within sixth hour after the accident. The distribution according to the severity of poisoning was: light (31.6%), moderate (47.5%) and severe (9.6%). The most common complications were necrosis bite site (31.8%) in bothropic envenoming and acute renal failure (1.2%) in crotalic envenoming. The case fatality rate was 0.46%, been the most rate observed in crotalic envenoming (1%). CONCLUSIONS: Accidents owing to poisonous snakes are frequent in the State of Goiás, the young male population is more often attacked and they are an important cause of death.
Snakebite; Epidemiology; Bothrops; Crotalus; Micrurus
