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Data

Deaths from venomous snakes

About this data

Deaths from venomous snakes
Number of deaths from snakebite envenoming.
Source
GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
November 21, 2023
Date range
2019–2019
Unit
deaths

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators – Global mortality of snakebite envenoming between 1990 and 2019

Snakebite envenoming is an important cause of preventable death. The World Health Organization (WHO) set a goal to halve snakebite mortality by 2030. We used verbal autopsy and vital registration data to model the proportion of venomous animal deaths due to snakes by location, age, year, and sex, and applied these proportions to venomous animal contact mortality estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 study. In 2019, 63,400 people (95% uncertainty interval 38,900–78,600) died globally from snakebites, which was equal to an age-standardized mortality rate (ASMR) of 0.8 deaths (0.5–1.0) per 100,000 and represents a 36% (2–49) decrease in ASMR since 1990. India had the greatest number of deaths in 2019, equal to an ASMR of 4.0 per 100,000 (2.3—5.0). We forecast mortality will continue to decline, but not sufficiently to meet WHO’s goals. Improved data collection should be prioritized to help target interventions, improve burden estimation, and monitor progress.

Retrieved on
November 21, 2023
Retrieved from
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33627-9
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators. Global mortality of snakebite envenoming between 1990 and 2019. Nat Commun 13, 6160 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33627-9

Snakebite envenoming is an important cause of preventable death. The World Health Organization (WHO) set a goal to halve snakebite mortality by 2030. We used verbal autopsy and vital registration data to model the proportion of venomous animal deaths due to snakes by location, age, year, and sex, and applied these proportions to venomous animal contact mortality estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 study. In 2019, 63,400 people (95% uncertainty interval 38,900–78,600) died globally from snakebites, which was equal to an age-standardized mortality rate (ASMR) of 0.8 deaths (0.5–1.0) per 100,000 and represents a 36% (2–49) decrease in ASMR since 1990. India had the greatest number of deaths in 2019, equal to an ASMR of 4.0 per 100,000 (2.3—5.0). We forecast mortality will continue to decline, but not sufficiently to meet WHO’s goals. Improved data collection should be prioritized to help target interventions, improve burden estimation, and monitor progress.

Retrieved on
November 21, 2023
Retrieved from
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33627-9
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators. Global mortality of snakebite envenoming between 1990 and 2019. Nat Commun 13, 6160 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33627-9

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Deaths from venomous snakes”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Deaths from venomous snakes” [dataset]. GBD 2019 Snakebite Envenomation Collaborators, “Global mortality of snakebite envenoming between 1990 and 2019” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-snakebite-envenoming.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear