Overview of the epidemiology of snakebites and scorpion stings in the MENA region.

The population data for the 5 North African and 14 Middle Eastern countries as well as their allocation in “urban” and “rural” was obtained from the world development indicators database (The World Bank). The information about incidences, antivenom administration, locality of incidence, age groups, gender ratios, morbidity, and mortality were retrieved from articles published in scientific journals. The study type and the geographical region covered are also included. Due to the regional limitations of most articles, countrywide numbers were either estimated by us based on the literature of several different regions that cover the major topology of a country and are geographically evenly distributed (light green), or we used prior population adjusted (increased population since publication) estimates from Kasturiratne and colleagues for snakebites and Chippaux and Goyffon for scorpion stings (yellow), if there was insufficient literature. However, some articles gave a clear indication that the numbers are covering the epidemiology of the entire country (dark green). Relevant publications are included in brackets. MENA, Middle East and North Africa. (XLSX)