It was recently reported that almost 100,000 people are dying annually from snake poison. Although countries like America are able to control poison due to their existing medicine, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asian countries suffer most heavily from snake bite poison due to a lack of labs.
Dr. Lembit Rago is noted as stating that most of these deaths and injuries could be prevented with better access to antivenom. Thus, poverty seems to be a key cause in these deaths. If the mentioned countries could afford to set up labs, it seems the thousands of deaths would not occur.
In response to the many deaths, the World Health Organization created a website listing approved antivenoms for treatment in the hopes of reducing the number of deaths per year. View their page on snake antivenom informational resources at: http://www.who.int/bloodproducts/snake_antivenoms/en/
-Yashina Burns
Resources: boston.com
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