Special Issue Editorial: Sustainably reducing snakebite burden by prioritising research(ers) in high-risk areas

Snakes are an everyday hazard for the 6.85 billion people living within the range of areas inhabited by snakes.1 An estimated 5 million people are bitten by a snake each year, with severe life-threatening illness occurring in about half of these cases. The greatest burden is in South America, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where a significant proportion of the population live in proximity to natural snake habitats, and the outcomes are poorer in part due to historical injustices and suboptimal investment in the healthcare sector.2 In this special issue, we present a broad range of articles from across the world, especially from regions with the highest burden of snakebite, as can be seen in Figures 1a and b, with most corresponding authors based where the research was conducted. The articles in this issue encompass varied study designs and span the translational pathway from basic science (T0) through translation to humans (T1), patients (T2), practice (T3) and community (T4).