Temporal and spatial trends of accidents with venomous animal in Brazil before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-based ecological study.

Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the temporal and spatial trends of accidents involving venomous animals in Brazil during the pre- and COVID-19 pandemic periods.

Methods: We conducted a population-based ecological study using comprehensive data from the Notifiable Diseases Information System, covering all accidents involving venomous animals in Brazil from January 2013 to December 2022. We did a temporospatial analysis to compare the incidence rates of accidents involving venomous animals per Brazilian municipality in the pre-pandemic period (January 2013 to February 2020) and the pandemic period (March 2020 to December 2022). To analyze the trend, the seasonal-trend model was used based on the classic additive decomposition model. For spatial distribution analysis, the Global Moran's Index was used.

Results: A total of 2,202,842 cases of accidents involving venomous animals were recorded. Brazil showed an increasing trend from 2017 to 2019 (annual percentage change [APC]: 0.98, p<0.001) and a stable trend from 2020 to 2022 (APC: 0.42, p<0.080). The North (APC: 0.19, p<0.330), South (APC: 0.04, p<0.953), and Southeast (APC: 0.26, p<0.312) regions presented a stable trend from 2020 to 2022. Spatial dependence of smoothed rates was observed in both the pre-pandemic (Moran's I: 0.47; p=0.000) and COVID-19 pandemic periods (Moran's I: 0.50; p=0.000).

Conclusion: There was a stable trend in accidents involving venomous animals from 2020 to 2022 in Brazil. The spatial distribution of cases was heterogeneous for both periods studied.