New treatments offer hope for neglected snakebite victims

Snakebite envenoming kills more than 100,000 people each year and leaves hundreds of thousands more with life‑changing injuries, largely in rural regions of the global south. Scientists are now making rapid progress toward safer, more effective treatments—from improved traditional antivenoms to cutting‑edge recombinant antibodies and small‑molecule drugs that could be given outside hospital settings. With several candidates already in preclinical and clinical trials, researchers hope these innovations will dramatically reduce deaths and disabilities, though major financial and logistical challenges still stand in the way of getting new therapies to the people who need them most.