Snakebite affects the lives of around 4.5 million
people worldwide every year seriously injuring 2.7
million men, women and children, and claiming
some 125,000 lives. Globally the greatest burden is
experienced in the tropical world; where many
nations remain under developed or suffer from
poor governance, political and/or social, conflict,
resource scarcity, high disease burdens, or food
insecurity. The available evidence shows that it is
in the world’s poorest economies that the burden
of snakebite mortality is the greatest, and survival
is no guarantee of a full recovery, with many
thousands of victims being left permanently
disabled and emotionally destroyed by their
injuries7.
The World Health Organization added snakebite to
the list of Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2009, but
made no provision to seek global funding to do
anything about the problem. Like all endeavors,
global health is highly politicized, and it wasn’t
long before snakebite was downgraded by WHO
under a sub-definition: “Other ‘neglected’
conditions“. This belies the extent of the problem
– snakebite is a global catastrophe affecting
millions of the world’s poorest, and least
empowered people. WHO analysis of global
snakebite envenoming incidence and mortality
provided figures that can be used to place
snakebite in comparison to other tropical illnesses.