RH, BF, DL are staff of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and SW is supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council, UK, which had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: A source of funding was not required to support this work. Received: AugAccepted: NovemPublished: December 22, 2009Ĭopyright: © 2009 Harrison et al. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 3(12):Įditor: Julian White, Women's and Children's Hospital, Australia Our data unequivocally establishes that snake envenoming is globally associated with poverty, a distinctive characteristic of the neglected tropical diseases.Ĭitation: Harrison RA, Hargreaves A, Wagstaff SC, Faragher B, Lalloo DG (2009) Snake Envenoming: A Disease of Poverty. Here we examined associations between the globally available data on (i) snakebite-induced mortality and (ii) socioeconomic markers of poverty. All the global estimates of snake envenoming and deaths from snakebite indicate that mortality is highest in the world's tropical countries. Snake envenoming urgently requires international support to instigate the epidemiological, health education, and effective treatment initiatives that proved so potent in addressing the medical burden of NTDs such as leprosy and dracunculosis. The recent categorisation of snake envenoming as an NTD is an important advance that hopefully will result in the wider recognition and allocation of resources, particularly since death from snake envenoming is preventable antivenom is very effective when the appropriate antivenom is correctly administered. While lacking the epidemic potential of an infectious/vector-borne disease, snake envenoming in rural tropical communities has as great a medical mortality, if not morbidity, as the NTDs. Every year snake envenoming kills more people in the tropics than some of the world's recognised neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), including schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis.
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