NEW DELHI: Snakebite envenoming (SBE) kills one person every five minutes globally, despite being both preventable and treatable, said a global report.
Highlighting that snakebite is one of the world’s deadliest yet most overlooked Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), the report said, it represents nearly half of the global burden of all NTDs as it causes up to 1,38,000 deaths and 4,00,000 permanent disabilities every year.
But despite this, snakebite receives only a fraction of the funding it desperately needs, said the report by the Strike Out Snakebite (SOS), a global campaign aimed at raising awareness and mobilising action to reduce deaths and disabilities from snakebite envenoming. India, which is considered the snakebite capital of the world, reports an estimated 58,000 deaths annually.
According to Dr Nagaraj, Anaesthesiologist, , Srinivasa Hospital, Bangalore, who provided insights for the report, said, “India accounts for almost half of global deaths from snakebite envenoming, with 1.2 million lives lost to snakebite over the past 20 years,” he told this paper. The report also said that SBE is a crisis of inequality, where access to treatment is a privilege, not a right.
“It disproportionately affects agricultural workers and rural communities – people at the heart of industries such as farming, mining, and infrastructure. From the coffee we drink to the clothes we wear, the crisis of SBE is being experienced by the very people who grow, farm or supply so many aspects of our everyday life,” said the report, which was released to mark World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day 2026.
Elhadj As Sy, Chancellor of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Co-Chair of the Global Snakebite Taskforce, said, “Snakebite must no longer be overlooked or underfunded by the international community. It is time for action not sympathy, not statements, but action worthy of the scale of this crisis.”