Devotees walk past a wall mural of Hindu deity Shiva after performing rituals to pay respect to the holy 'Naga Kuan' or the snake well during the July Naga Panchami festival in Varanasi.NIHARIKA KULKARNI/AFP/Getty Images
One recent morning, Charley Varghese, a priest in the southern Indian town of Chengannur in Kerala, received a call from a parent in distress.
His two-year-old son had been bitten by a Russell’s viper, a common venomous snake, while chasing a ball in the courtyard of his home.
The boy’s parents found Mr. Varghese’s contact information on Serpent, an app that connects users with trained snake rescuers and hospitals during snakebite emergencies.
“I drove to their home immediately, secured the snake and took the boy to a hospital I knew stocked anti-venom,” Mr. Varghese said. “He reached the hospital in time and got the right treatment, which is why he survived.”
It is snakebite season in most of India. The monsoons, which run from June to September, bring out the reptiles, making contact between humans and snakes more likely. Almost every snakebite death – 94 per cent – happens in rural India, but very few seek treatment in hospitals. Those who do often encounter gaps in the availability of anti-venom and inadequate health infrastructure to deal with snakebite care.
India is also the snakebite capital of the world. Every year about 58,000 people in the country die from bites caused by venomous snakes – almost half of the global total. To combat that, a national government program is under way to cut snakebite deaths and disabilities in half by 2030 in line with World Health Organization targets. The program co-ordinates efforts across sectors, setting up helplines, boosting community awareness and improving anti-venom access at health care centres.
A growing network of scientists, civil society groups, forest departments, non-profits and app developers is also stepping in to assist with prevention and response. Digital platforms such as Sarpa, SnakeHub, Snakepedia, Serpent, and Naagam provide access to certified snake rescuers and hospitals equipped with anti-venom, along with tools to identify snake species and first-aid guidance.
“There’s more attention from the government, the Supreme Court, and the medical community to recognize snakebites as a serious public health issue, not just a human-animal conflict,” said Jose Louies, chief executive officer of the Wildlife Trust of India, who works as a facilitator for several government-led snakebite mitigation projects.
Visitors view a cobra on display during World Snake Day at Guindy Snake Park in Chennai, India.ARUN SANKAR/Getty Images
Under-reporting and a lack of comprehensive, nationwide government data have long made efforts to tackle the problem fragmented and inadequate. In November, 2024, the Indian government officially declared snakebites a “notifiable disease” – because WHO classifies snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease, as it is widespread, undertreated, impacts the marginalized, and causes high mortality and disability – and urged states to mandate hospital reporting of snakebite cases to strengthen surveillance systems.
“Most victims are rural farmers, who feed the country. We owe them better care,” said Mr. Louies.
Soumyadeep Bhaumik, a medical doctor and head of the meta-research and evidence synthesis unit at The George Institute for Global Health based in Sydney, said that includes ensuring better availability of clinicians, nurses and other health care workers in the primary health care system.
But India’s biggest challenge in addressing the crisis is that a victim’s first call is often not to a medical professional. Instead, many turn to faith healers who perform exorcism-style rituals and attempt to treat the wound using untested herbal remedies.
“In rural India, people don’t often go to a hospital when they are bitten,” said Mr. Louies. “There’s still a widespread belief that snakebite is a curse, not a medical emergency.”
Many digital tools and awareness campaigns are working to counter such myths and warn against turning to unqualified healers to treat snakebites.
In one initiative, crowdsourced maps track real-time sightings of India’s most common venomous snakes, called the Big Four: the Indian cobra, Russell’s viper, common krait and saw-scaled viper.
A key part of the overall effort is education and promoting behavioural change, such as encouraging communities to clear waste, control rodent populations and carry flashlights at night.
So far, efforts in Kerala are working, said Mr. Louies, noting that in five years annual snakebite deaths have dropped from 150 to 30.
“We’re strengthening co-ordination between education, health, agriculture and forest departments, and our network of volunteers,” he said. “Every snakebite death is now being investigated to identify gaps. The impact has been significant and other states are adopting a similar model, he added.
While snakebites were once viewed as a rural issue, a rise in reports from urban areas has set off alarm bells.
Wildlife Trust of India CEO Jose Louies says increasing access to anti-venom can greatly decrease snakebite-related deaths.SAM PANTHAKY/AFP/Getty Images
Experts point to urbanization, which means a loss of habitat for snakes, as a major driver of the growing human-snake conflict in Indian cities. But another important factor is climate change, said Kartick Satyanarayan, co-founder and chief executive officer of Wildlife SOS, a non-profit organization.
“Earlier, rains were mostly limited to the monsoon season. Now, unseasonal downpours are common,” he said. “Urban areas often have poor drainage systems, and sudden flooding forces snakes out of their underground habitats and into human spaces in search of safety.”
With a number of new subspecies of snakes in India recently identified, many states have highlighted the need for region-specific anti-venom, rather than the generic polyvalent formulation the country uses that is produced from the venom of the Big Four species, said Khushboo Daga, chief executive officer at Vins Bioproducts, a private company that produces anti-serums.
But developing state-specific anti-venom is a slow and challenging process, she said.
Monovalent anti-venom, which is formulated to treat bites from a single species of snake, is also still a distant goal in India. However, experts say increasing the potency and treatment protocols of the existing anti-venom could make a big difference in the meantime.
“It can bring down annual snakebite deaths to 5,000 in the next five to 10 years,” said Mr. Louies. “That’s the hope.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article included images of pythons, which are not venomous and thus not representative of the content of this article. The photos have been replaced.