Community based interventions for snakebite

Background

Snakebite is a neglected tropical disease with almost all its burden being concentrated in South Asia and Africa. Every year 81,000–138,000 people die due to snakebite globally, almost half of them in India. The World Health Organisation has in 2019 developed a strategy to address the burden of snakebite. It has four pillars:

• empower and engage communities.
• ensure safe, effective treatment.
• strengthen health systems.
• increase partnerships, coordination and resource sharing.

While community-based interventions are very common there is no evidence synthesis on the effectiveness of it. The current project fills this gap.

Aim

To assess the effectiveness of community-based interventions for addressing the burden of snakebite

Research Methodology

Community based interventions for snakebite represents a complex public health intervention. The project will focus on conduct of a high-quality systematic review of intervention studies, in accordance with broad principles and approach in the Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews.

Potential Impact

The systematic review is the first on the topic globally and will potentially inform policy, program and future research on the domain.