Centre for Global Health Research, Unity Health Toronto, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
David Warrell
Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Romulus Whitaker
Centre for Herpetology/Madras Crocodile Bank, Vadanemmeli Village, Chennai, India
Geetha Menon
Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi, India
Rashmi Rodrigues
Department of Community Health, St. John's Medical College, St. John's National Academy of Health Sciences, Bangalore, India
Sze Hang Fu
Centre for Global Health Research, Unity Health Toronto, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Rehana Begum
Centre for Global Health Research, Unity Health Toronto, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Prabha Sati
Centre for Global Health Research, Unity Health Toronto, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Kapila Piyasena
Centre for Global Health Research, Unity Health Toronto, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Mehak Bhatia
Centre for Global Health Research, Unity Health Toronto, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Patrick Brown
Centre for Global Health Research, Unity Health Toronto, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
The World Health Organization call to halve global snakebite deaths by 2030 will require substantial progress in India. We analyzed 2833 snakebite deaths from 611,483 verbal autopsies in the nationally representative Indian Million Death Study from 2001 to 2014, and conducted a systematic literature review from 2000 to 2019 covering 87,590 snakebites. We estimate that India had 1.2 million snakebite deaths (average 58,000/year) from 2000 to 2019. Nearly half occurred at ages 30–69 years and over a quarter in children < 15 years. Most occurred at home in the rural areas. About 70% occurred in eight higher burden states and half during the rainy season and at low altitude. The risk of an Indian dying from snakebite before age 70 is about 1 in 250, but notably higher in some areas. More crudely, we estimate 1.11–1.77 million bites in 2015, of which 70% showed symptoms of envenomation. Prevention and treatment strategies might substantially reduce snakebite mortality in India.
