India tops list of most snake attacks in the world with 1.3mn cases every year, study finds
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "India tops list of most snake attacks in the world with 1.3mn cases every year, study finds")
India reports over a million snake bite cases every year, while deaths are highest in sub–Saharan Africa. Photograph: (Unsplash)
India tops the list for the number of snake attacks in the world in a year, according to an analysis. Researchers studied data from 2007 to March 2025 and pegged the caseload in India at over a million. The majority of cases were limited to just 20 countries.
A study has named India the country where most snake attacks happen every year. According to scientists from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, around 2.1 to 7 million people are bitten by snakes in a year, with India being the world's snake attack capital, with up to 1.3 million cases. Nigeria is second with 666,000 cases, Indonesia 490,000, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 467,000 snake attacks in a year.
The mortality rate was highest in low-income countries, with sub–Saharan Africa accounting for 45 per cent of global snake bites and related deaths. This is nearly three times the incidence observed in South Asia, the researchers said. They added that the findings show that the previous estimates were extremely toned down and not correct.
Lead author Dileepa Ediriweera called Snake envenoming (SE) an important public health problem in the study published in PLOS Medicine. Several cases of snake bites and creatures swallowing humans have been reported in the past, with a few from last year and this year. However, estimating their number has remained a challenge. For the study, the researchers reviewed data on snake bites from 79 countries between January 2007 and March 2025.
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India reports over a million snake bite cases every year, while deaths are highest in sub–Saharan Africa. Photograph: (Unsplash)
Snake attacks - Countries in top 20
Their analysis showed that between 2.1 and 7 million snake attacks happen each year, 75 per cent of which occurred in just 20 countries. India is top of their list, as they noted that between 409,000 and 1.3 million attacks take place every year. In Nigeria, the second-placed country, the number of incidents stood between 198,000 and 666,000. Brazil (48,000–162,000), Vietnam (33,500–113,000), and China (28,900–97,400) were also in the Top 20 list.
Deaths from snake attacks
Fatalities from these incidents stood between 274,000 and 513,000 every year overall. But the researchers clarified that the figures are likely conservative and the caseload and resulting deaths could be much higher. "The true burden may be substantially higher, potentially up to three times greater for envenomings and twice as high for mortality," they wrote in the study.
