Acid burn attacks: Looking beneath the surface

Acid attacks are deliberate acts of violence that are potentially lethal and may result in significant burns to the surface area of the victim’s body (Karunadasa et al., 2010). Such attacks were considered common in the USA and UK in the 1800s (Chowdhury, 2007), but from the 1980s, the reporting of acid attacks increased in southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (Khoshnami, Mohammadi, Rasi, Khankeh, & Arshi, 2017). Incidence of acid attacks are now highest in some developing nations, accounting for 20% of burns in Cambodia, 9% in Bangladesh and 11.5% in Iran (Khoshnami et al., 2017).