Why are antivenoms not easily accessible in India?
The HinduOn New Year’s Day, five-year-old Mayuri lost her life to a snakebite in Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka. She became one of the estimated 58,000 Indians who die every year from venomous snakebite, a terrible number that renders India the ‘snakebite capital’ of the world and highlights the scale of this preventable crisis. A landmark 2020 study by researchers from Canada, India, and the U.K. estimated that between 2001 and 2014, a horrifying 1.2 million snakebite deaths and three-times as many cases of permanent disability occurred in India. Antivenoms often need to be transported in cold storage, however, India’s rural parts lack the supporting infrastructure and power supply. With continued investment in research, public education, and infrastructure, India can address its snakebite crisis, with reason to hope tragedies like Mayuri’s will become a thing of the past.
History of this topic
Rajasthan snakebite crisis: Ineffective antivenom puts lives at risk
New Indian Express
A brief history of antivenom
The Hindu
Ineffective antivenoms for snakebites
The Hindu
Sri Lanka’s antivenom leap forward
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