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Every year 2 million or more people fall victim to snakebite envenoming, mostly in poor, rural communities of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Between 83,000—138,000 of them die, while hundreds of thousands more suffer debilitating long-term complications or disabilities.

Although some antivenom medicines are highly effective when used promptly and appropriately, many snakebite victims get no treatment at all. Those who do may receive antivenoms which don’t work against the type of snake that bit them, or were not rigorously tested for safety and effectiveness.

To mark World Snakebite Awareness Day on September 19th, the Collection linked below brings together recent MSF work on this highly neglected disease. Several articles and conference presentations help fill evidence gaps on the burden of disease and its impacts or on treatment outcomes with specific antivenoms in specific regions. Others examine how to tackle the formidable challenges of availability and affordability, the absence of regulatory oversight for making, testing and registering antivenoms, and the anemic R&D pipeline for new products—all of which impede access for patients to safe, effective treatment tailored to local snake species.

While Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is known mostly for providing direct medical aid to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from health services, we also conduct research aimed at improving patient care and advocating for evidence-based policy and practices. To this end we conduct hundreds of research studies each year, publish extensively in peer-reviewed journals, and present our findings at scientific conferences around the world, including several annual MSF-organized events.

With the MSF Science Portal we introduce a new platform that aims to be a « one-stop shop » for content related to this work, so that users anywhere can easily find, browse, access, share and use the knowledge our research generates. Alongside frequent updates of new publications, conference materials, reports and featured content, we will continue to develop this site and to expand its range of content. To learn more about the Portal and what it offers, check out the short videos and slide presentation in this collection.