The Hidden Cost of Snakebites on Human Livelihoods

For far too long, human-snake conflict, snakebite, and its repercussions have been looked at as a "wildlife" issue. This, despite the World Health Organization reinstating it as a Neglected Tropical Disease in 2017. This restricted outlook hasn't benefitted any stakeholders involved in this interaction, including snakes. All it has done is placed the onus of addressing this issue in the hands of the state forest departments, well-intentioned conservationists, and policy advocates. Few individuals, organizations and government stakeholders look at the issue of snakebite as a public health concern (rightfully so), while fewer still look at it for what it really is at the heart of it all - a socioeconomic concern of unquantified proportions.??

A quick summary for those unfamiliar with the issue at hand: India is the snakebite capital of the world. Over a million bites occur every year with 94% of them being in rural India, resulting in the loss of lives of nearly 60,000 individuals and permanent loss of life function for nearly 200,000 individuals. This means that every single hour in our country, 6 people lose their life, while 22 more people suffer from morbidity due to snakebite.??

Honestly, the true cost of snakebite is hiding in plain sight and needs us to look at this with a different lens- that of empathy and economics. Data suggests that primary breadwinners of rural Indian households are at the highest risk of snakebite with first men, and then women respectively, in the age group of 15 – 69 bearing the brunt of most bites. When a family member, particularly a male breadwinner loses his life to snakebite, women go out to work in fields and invariably get paid lesser wages, affecting their per capita income. An average Indian male farm worker earns Rs.348/- per day, while women earn Rs.244/- for the same quantum of work. Crude math demonstrates a nearly 30% drop in household income over a span of one year.??

Invariably, while seeking treatment for the victim, the family ends up borrowing copious amounts of money from dubious lenders who are on the heels of the family soon enough. In the past, this has led to children being pulled out of school prematurely and made to work as agricultural, or industrial labour to provide additional income to the household. If the same male breadwinner suffers a permanent loss of life function as opposed to losing their life, the scenario is much the same, with the additional economic burden of providing continued treatment, prosthetics when required, and countless therapies for them to regain some semblance of normalcy.??

The compounding cost of snakebite goes so far beyond the obvious medical costs, deeply affects livelihood opportunities, home economics, future prospects of the youth of the country and also triggers mental health issues that have never been studied in an Indian context, yet. The need of the hour to begin to tackle this issue holistically is to create a shared vision across stakeholders be it from the lens of public health, livelihood, agriculture, ecology, conservation, education and animal welfare. The social sector must see this issue in its entirety to get the policymakers to address snakebite as a socioeconomic problem affecting farmers, the backbone of our country, rather than relegate it to a human-wildlife conflict issue alone.??