Venomous snake bites cause between 81,410 and 137,880 deathsThat is one death every five minutes somewhere in the world, according to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), which wants to halve the number of victims by 2030.
On the occasion of the international day of awareness of this situation, every September 19, the WHO expert on snakes and bites, David Williams, warned that Children are most exposedand states that more than a third of all deaths were under the age of twenty. For every death, three additional people were bitten by a venomous snake. end up with long-term or permanent disability, which includes cases in which one of the limbs must be amputated.
Venomous snakes live in large areas of the world, such as tropical jungles or deserts, and the majority of bite cases are recorded in low- and middle-income countries in Asia, Africa or Latin America.
An incident like this can push many survivors into deeper poverty due to the high cost of treatment. The case of India is particularly alarming, where every year on average 58,000 deaths, according to WHO data.
As part of its strategy to reduce snakebite cases, WHO has launched a programme aimed at evaluate the effectiveness of marketed antidotes. A community-based model for treatment procurement, supply and distribution has also been created and will be tested for the first time in West Africa next year.
The WHO predicts that climate change will most likely impact the distribution of snake populations and that some species will be forced in the not too distant future to move to environments where they will enter. in contact with human beings.
