Deaths From Snakebites Could Be Slashed by Seven Simple Steps

Snakebite deaths could be slashed by a few simple steps, researchers have revealed in a new study.

Around the world, 140,000 people die from venomous snakebites every year. Another 400,000 survive, but are left with a disability, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Yet, the issue is often overlooked despite its severity.

For this reason, scientists are looking to tackle the issue. And now a team of international scientists from the University of Exeter in England may have come up with the steps needed to do so. Their findings were published in Conservation Science and Practice.

To reach their findings, they asked 535 residents of Tamil Nadu in India to fill out a survey. The area is known for its high frequency of snakebites. Although only 5 percent of India's population live in the state, it is where around 20 percent of snakebite deaths occur.

India is home to a variety of extremely venomous snakes. The species that pose the most risk are common kraits, the Indian cobra, Russell's viper and the saw-scaled viper. These snakes are responsible for around 90 percent of snakebites in India, according to the WHO. A bite from any of these species is a medical emergency. Some of their bites can cause death in minutes if they are not treated immediately.

"Not to single out any individual nation, but India is thought to have around 58,000 deaths a year and many more survivors left permanently physically disabled. This is a fair amount of lives lost relative to other national health issues; especially considering snakebites take place every year and have done for some time," Harrison Carter, who led the study as part of a masters in conservation and biodiversity at the University of Exeter, told Newsweek.

"I suppose it comes down to a country's relative prioritization of issues. However, we shouldn't accept this rationale for a key reason—snake killings in retaliation. Humans are generally very fearful of snakes across the tropics, and snakes killed each year are thought to be in the hundreds of thousands across tropical regions."

The survey asked what current protective measures residents already take, and what prevents them from doing more. From the answers, scientists identified seven steps that could be implemented to prevent some of the major problem areas that lead to snakebites.

These steps included an increase in snake education for communities who live in danger areas. The study noted that more awareness of how snakes contribute to the ecosystem, as well as being able to tell the difference between venomous and non-venomous species, may reduce fear, thus leading to fewer conflicts with snakes.

"Snakes offer important ecosystem services to rural communities in these areas, pest control for example, which indirectly manages the spread of disease and supports crop yields," Carter said.

"I believe the extent of this snake fear drives the killing of snakes, where if fewer bites occurred through effective prevention, tolerance to snakes would improve. This isn't just a human health issue, it's a human-wildlife coexistence issue—disaster even—and cannot afford to be overlooked any longer."

They also recommended initiating trial periods when implementing new preventive measures in communities. The researchers said this could improve confidence among residents, which could lead to the measures being adopted more widely.

Other suggestions in their list were more technical, such as assessing "context-specific barriers," the "costs and benefits of unrecognized snakebite prevention measures, enhance the awareness of snakebite prevention, expanding the research on venomous snakes, and researching the "cues to action in the adoption of snakebite prevention measures."

From the study results, researchers found that more than half of people exclusively used government-recommended guidelines in snakebite prevention, such as keeping homes tidy and using a light when it is dark outside. However, 41 percent of people used their own preventive measures that are not supported by evidence. This included using salt, garlic, turmeric or bleach as snake deterrents.

"Some of these recommendations could be actioned immediately, and others will take more time," Carter said. "Perhaps our key finding is snakebite prevention measures have to work for the people if they are to be adopted, it's not enough for them to apply a theoretical fix. For example, in the study area, most people work in paddy fields, where protective boots just fill up with water and are not practical for use."

In nearly every community that researchers visited, people knew someone who had either died of been seriously injured by a snake recently, Carter said in a summary of the findings.

"I think there are two clear next steps. Initially, our research methods should be applied elsewhere in India and across the tropics, reiterating technical details where valuable—to understand the broader scope of factors that affect the adoption of snakebite prevention," Carter said.

"The other next step would be to build on knowledge gained in our study area, and support the government to empower closer organizations to work with communities to identify evidence-based solutions to prevent snakebites that work for the people at risk.

"It would be particularly exciting to align prevention activity with particularly high bite-risk months, but greater ecological research is required to understand the temporal/spatial behavior of medically significant snake species for this to be reliably effective."

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Update 01/25/2024 7:20 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include direct quotes from Harrison Carter.