Volume 24, Issue 104, July - August, 2020

Dry Bite by Common krait: A rare phenomenon & its management; rationale use of antivenom

Khalid I Khan^1♦, Aishwarya Ghule², Sunil Kumar³

¹Assistant Professor; Department of Medicine at JNMC, DMIMS, Sawangi Meghe, Wardha (M.S. India) 442001)
²Post graduate resident; Department of Medicine at JNMC, DMIMS, Sawangi Meghe, Wardha (M.S. India) 442001)
³Professor & HOD, Department of Medicine at JNMC, DMIMS, Sawangi Meghe, Wardha (M.S. India) 442001)

^♦Corresponding author
Assistant Professor; Department of Medicine at JNMC, DMIMS, Sawangi Meghe, Wardha, India; Email: khalid.khan9t@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Snake bite is one of the major health concerns in India especially in rural India. One of the dangerously poisonous neurotoxic snakes is Common krait (Bungarus caeruleus), also known as Indian Krait or blue krait. They are nocturnal in nature and contribute to many cases of snake bite envenomation, mainly people sleeping on the floor. Many a times, the victim doesn’t wake up because of the painless venom. They usually wake up with the symptoms of paralysis or may even die in sleep. Very rarely it causes dry bites. Here we report a case of 40-year-old male who presented with a snake bite at 7.00 pm in the evening, when he went to pick the broom. Snake bite or fang marks were present on his forearm, but no signs and symptoms of envenomation were seen. So, we present a case of “dry bite” which is quite rare in kraits. We kept him under observation for next 72 hours, no deterioration in patient’s health was observed. So, we are hereby elaborating about the case and approach towards a dry snake bite patient & rationale use of antivenom.

Keywords: Bungarus caeruleus; Common krait; Dry bite; Indian Krait; rationale use of antivenom

Medical Science, 2020, 24(104), 2418-2423

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