The Epidemiology of Fatal Gunshot Injuries in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: A Five-Year Autopsy Study

Authors: Ng’walali PM* and Kazaura M

DOI: 10.23880/ijfsc-16000254

Volume 7, Issue 1

Abstract

Gunshot wounds are common and form a major health problem. They severely affect the criminal justice and health-care systems in the world. Data on gunshot deaths in Tanzania are not readily available. The common source of information is through the police and media reports; especially when associated with armed robbery. Using descriptive cross-sectional study, we assessed the epidemiology of fatal gunshot injuries at one of the largest National Hospital in Tanzania over a period of five years. We examined, reviewed and then classified gunshot injuries and deaths guided by the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision (ICD)-10. The victims of fatal gunshot injuries were examined to establish the age, sex, circumstances of death and manner of death, anatomical site of entrance. In addition, we classified the manner of gunshot as police, bandit, suicide and interpersonal or homicide or accident. All the data were retrieved from the Hospital’s mortuary into data abstraction from. We reviewed 6162 autopsies from the registry starting from 2015 to 2019. The incidence of gunshot injury death was 38.0 persons per 1000 forensic autopsies per year (95% Confidence Interval: 33.4, 43.1). Almost 95% of the victims were males, young (median age=32, Inter-Quartile Range = 15). The incidence of gunshot deaths has been significantly decreasing from 42.4 in 2015 to 15.9 in 2019 per 1000 autopsies. The majority of victims were shot in the chest (37.2%) and more than 60% are gunned down either by low enforcers of bandits.

Keywords: Autopsy; Gunshot; Epidemiology; Tanzania

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