PREVALENCE, EPIDEMIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ANIMAL BITE AMONG CHILDREN IN IRAQ, A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

Dr. Abdul Sattar Sahib Hamed*

ABSTRACT

Animal bites are critical threats to human and public health since the morbidity and mortality may be cause by it. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence and pattern of animal bites among children under 15 years old during the study period. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted from the 1st January 2017 up to December 2019. All the information was collected from the records. Sample size was 20861 cases. Data was described by using the descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, Chi-square, and p. value. STATA version 14 statistical package was used to analyze the data. The highest frequency 62.3% of studied sample occurred in the age groups 10 to 14 years old; male cases 57.2% were more than 42.8% female cases. 60.7% of them living in rural area and 39.3% in urban area .The percentage 44.2% of animal bites were higher during 2019. Stray animal were the main animal bites than other wild animal. Face and neck was the major site of animal bites and the most of them sought the treatment after 2 hours after exposed to animal bites. There are highly significant relationships between the age groups, gender and residence by the years at the p. value less than 0.05. Knowledge about animal bite is essential because it causes many fatal diseases to human beings.

Keywords: Animal bite, Stray, Prevalence, Characteristics, retrospective study.