• Q. How dangerous are human bites?

  A. Human bites are not as uncommon as you might think, and they're certainly worth taking seriously. They pretty much come in 3 varieties:
  

• those where one person sinks their teeth into another person
• those that are self-inflicted
• the "fight-bite"; bites occuring when one hits another in the face/mouth and gets a souvenir.

  In the emergency room, human bites have a reputation for carrying a high risk of infection (about 16% actually) and we assume all bites to be heavily contaminated with bacteria. One textbook I referred to listed 16 different bacteria possible to contaminate these wounds. In reality, early, aggressive treatment with cleaning and elevation of any limb affected, and a good search for damage to any underlying structures will greatly reduce the number of bites that will become infected.

  As a reference, about 4% of dog bites will become infected and 30-50% of cat bites will become infected. The risks of infection go up if:
  

• you seek help more than 6 hours after the bite occured
• if it's in a region of less than abundant blood supply, like the hand or foot
• if you have an underlying illness like diabetes or alcoholism.

  Local care (ie proper cleansing) is the best treatment, and the role of antibiotics in preventing infection, although still debated routinely, is as yet of no proven value.

  For some tasty morsels on bite statistics, click here on bite-bits

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