Demographic profile and pattern of fatal firearm injuries in an urban city in south-South Nigeria

Abdominal Injuries from Civilian Conflicts: An Emerging Global Health Challenge in Rural Southeast Nigeria

“…The implication of the findings is that the percentage of abdominal trauma resulting from civilian violence in our setting has leaped approximately six folds in the following three decades or put differently, it has jumped from a tenth to three-fifths of the total cases over the past 30 years. The observed changes in the trend may perhaps, be partly explained by the rising rates of assorted crimes in southern Nigeria and Southeast Nigeria in particular, as cited elsewhere by previous investigators [6,14]. It is noteworthy that the recent upsurge in the rates of abdominal trauma from civilian unrest in our setting may simply mirror the sub-Saharan African-wide epidemiological shift in abdominal injury pattern as other authors from other parts of Nigeria [4-7, 12, 18], Ethiopia [1,2,8], Tanzania [20], and Mauritania [17] have documented similar findings.…”

“…A striking observation was the predominance of GSIs (62.3%) over other mechanisms of injuries, being 2.5 folds, 6 folds, 35 folds and 50 folds higher than stab wounds, assaults, machete wounds and push from heights respectively. In the era of high rates of smuggling and access of firearms into Nigeria and other LMICs, a proportionate rise in crime-related GSIs has become an unfortunate sequela [9,14,25,34]. In this series, armed robbery, kidnappings, communal clashes, political thuggery, cultism and herder-farmers clashes were responsible for 86% of all cases of GSIs consistent with reports from Umuahia [9], Warri [13], and Ado-Ekiti [22], all in southern Nigeria, but varied from reports in Northern Nigeria where insurgency by Islamic militants was responsible for majority of the GSIs [5,11,24].…”

“…Indeed, recent published data indicate that religious violence is the common cause of GSIs in Northern Nigeria, while armed robbery-related GSIs are common in Southern Nigeria [1][2][3]11]. Additionally, GSIs in Nigeria may result from terrorist activities, communal clashes, cultism, political thuggery, assassination and accidental shots fired by law enforcement agents and during celebrations, festivals or hunting expeditions [3,11,[13][14][15]. Unfortunately, abdomen is particularly vulnerable to both blunt and penetrating injuries from civilian conflicts [1,8,14].…”

“…Additionally, GSIs in Nigeria may result from terrorist activities, communal clashes, cultism, political thuggery, assassination and accidental shots fired by law enforcement agents and during celebrations, festivals or hunting expeditions [3,11,[13][14][15]. Unfortunately, abdomen is particularly vulnerable to both blunt and penetrating injuries from civilian conflicts [1,8,14]. It is estimated that approximately one-third of all trauma patients have abdominal injuries though a careful triage will often isolate approximately 25% of such injuries for exploratory laparotomy [16,17].…”

The role of clinical and sonographic assessments in pre-operative evaluation of patients with splenic injuries in a resource-limited economy

“…Findings from previous studies done elsewhere conform with the above report 4 – 6 , 12 , 14 . It has been reported that trauma rates are generally more in males and younger individuals due the fact that these groups are generally more exposed to trauma and violence from increased human movements, possession of firearms and higher involvement in illicit acts like drug abuse, alcoholism, kidnapping, cultism, insurgency and wars 24 , 25 , 27 – 30 .…”