Today
is Snakebite Awareness Day and it gives us a unique opportunity to give victims
of this global health crisis the attention they deserve!
Snakebite envenoming
was officially listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a category A
(highest priority) Neglected Tropical Disease in 2017. Earlier this year, the
World Health Assembly, comprised of representatives from Ministries of Health
in all 193 U.N. Member States, convened in Geneva and adopted a robust
resolution calling for greater global, regional and country-based efforts to
reduce the burden of snakebite.
Today – 19 September – a coalition of organisations (Global Snakebite Initiative, Royal Society of
Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Lillian
Lincoln Foundation, The
Kofi Annan Foundation, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, The
International Society on Toxinology, The Wellcome
Trust, Health
Action International, Médecins sans Frontières, Seqirus, Instituto
Clodomiro Picado, Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia and
the Australian
Venom Research Unit) are working on
global health and tropical medicine around the world to announce the
first-ever International Snakebite Awareness Day!
The launch of
International Snakebite Awareness Day aims to raise awareness of the huge, yet
mostly unrecognized, global impact of snakebite.
The World Health
Organization estimates that between 81,000 and 138,000 people around the world
die each year from snakebite and up to 400,000 are left permanently disabled or
disfigured, as a result of being bitten by venomous snakes. In many
communities, these permanent injuries result in people being discriminated
against and ostracized, ultimately leading to crippling loss of income, debt,
mental health issues and reduced quality of life.
“Snakebites
can cause paralysis, fatal hemorrhages, irreversible kidney failure and tissue
damage that can lead to disability and amputation. The number of people being
bitten by snakes each year could be as high as 5.4 million according to WHO.
The fact that snakebite is not being recognized on the global stage must
change.” -Tamar Ghosh, CEO of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and
Hygiene
In 2017, the World
Health Organization added snakebite envenoming to its list of highest priority
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and in May this year the 71st World Health
Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the governments of the
world and the WHO to tackle the problem.
“Developing a
sustainable package of interventions to reduce the burden of death and
suffering is a substantial challenge. The WHO has started the process of
preparing a strategic road map that aims at cutting deaths and disability by
50% before 2030. But to succeed the WHO needs support and assistance from
a wide range of partners, and in that regard, establishing an International
Snakebite Awareness Day is a huge step in the right direction.” -Dr David
Williams, CEO of the Global Snakebite Initiative
The current crisis is
similar to that which other neglected diseases have already overcome through
international collaborative action. The coalition hopes that International
Snakebite Awareness Day will galvanize action around the issue and add
momentum to a call, which was supported by the late Kofi Annan, on national
governments, health agencies, pharmaceutical companies and non-governmental
organisations to prioritize snakebite as a global health issue so that many
thousands of lives are saved!
For the millions of
people who are bitten every year, all of this means no access to the effective
treatment they desperately need. But when the global community comes
together and makes a collective decision that poverty should not be a barrier
to good health, and acts in cooperation to put in place robust measures to
reverse neglect, the world quickly sees the balance shift, and many thousands
of lives are saved. International Snakebite Awareness Day will hopefully
catalyze that change!
What can be done?
The first International
Snakebite Conference, held earlier this year, brought together so
many amazing people working to solve snakebite issues around the world and
clearly demonstrated the tremendous scale of the global snakebite crisis. What
we learned is that it will take a monumental effort to get appropriate medical
care to the communities who need it the most. Whether it’s because of cost,
distance or lack of trust in western medicine, rural communities in the global
majority simply do not currently receive the proper medical care after a
snakebite. To make matters even worse, it will take years to implement the
necessary steps that will bring medical care to these communities, who
desperately need it today!
Until that day
comes, prevention is the first step in stopping this snakebite
crisis. Save The Snakes is going to work harder, smarter and even more
determined than ever to continue our work to mitigate human-snake conflict. Far
too often we receive emails from individuals from around the world who request
support so that they can address the issue of snakebite or snake conservation
in their communities. By empowering and supporting snake conservationists to
mitigate human-snake conflict, our organization’s unique, community-based
approach to snake conservation can reduce snakebite in the communities that
need it most. After this conference, Save The Snakes moves forward, better
prepared, to continue with our own efforts and we are truly driven and
inspired!
What can you do?
