Temporal Trends of Dog Bite Cases and their Correlation with Meteorological Factors in a Metropolitan City

Of the 3350 dog bite cases that attended the outpatient department, 2368 (70.7%) were below 40 years of age, 2733 (81.6%) were males, and 2621 (78.18%) had category III bites. We found a positive correlation between the number of dog bites and temperature (ρ = 0.650, <i>P</i> = 0.022) and average sun hours (ρ =0.804, <i>P</i> = 0.002). A negative correlation was found between rainfall (ρ = -0.845, <i>P</i> = 0.001), humidity (ρ = -0.730, <i>P</i> = 0.007), and rainy days (ρ = -0.804, <i>P</i> = 0.002). A similar correlation pattern was found for category III bites.