India Yet To Protect Coastal Communities From The Rising Threat Of Sea Snake Envenomation

Despite a 7,516-km coastline and millions whose livelihoods depend on the sea, India continues to overlook a growing occupational hazard — sea snake envenomation. While terrestrial snakebite is widely recognised as a public health priority, backed by national protocols and antivenom for the “Big Four” land snakes, marine envenomation in India remains largely invisible, poorly reported and poorly understood.

A team of researchers have now urged the government to acknowledge the scale of the threat in a review published in the prestigious Indian Journal of Medical Research (IJMR).

“We are still treating sea snake bites as rare accidents when they are, in fact, a recurring threat for coastal workers,” said Dr. Ninad Vilas Nagrale, Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, AIIMS Kalyani, the lead author of the study ‘Sea snake envenomation in India: Urgent need for specific antivenom development’.

His co-authors included Utpal Tripura, Adjourno Contentie Ch. Marak, Oinam Gambhir Singh, also from AIIMS Kalyani, and Asim Tripura and Santanu Das from Agartala Government Medical College.

According to the study, “the absence of data has translated into absence of policy” — leaving India without a coherent strategy to address marine snakebites, despite their high fatality and their direct link to fishing activity.

The researchers noted that while it is the silent snake bite threat, data is scanty.

They pointed out that India’s coastal waters host several medically important sea snake species — Enhydrina schistosa, Hydrophis schistosus, Hydrophis curtus, Hydrophis cyanocinctus, Hydrophis spiralis, Lapemis curtus and Pelamis platurus. Their venom is highly musculotoxic, capable of causing rapid muscle breakdown, paralysis and death. Yet India does not have a single specific antivenom for these species.

Official data on the scale of the problem does not exist, noted Dr Utpal Tripura. However, a recent field assessment conducted across 15 fishing ports in West Bengal and Odisha recorded 166 sea snake bite incidents in a single year, with a staggering fatality rate exceeding 55%. Most victims were fishermen who were bitten while hauling nets or sorting catch — and many died before reaching a hospital.

Such deaths rarely appear in government records. “Obviously, when deaths don’t reach the books, the system assumes the problem doesn’t exist,” the authors noted. This absence of surveillance has prevented any meaningful policy response, leaving gaps in clinical preparedness, research investment and health infrastructure.

Unlike terrestrial snakebites, sea snake bites often leave no visible fang marks or only minimal local reaction, misleading victims into ignoring early symptoms. The venom acts silently on skeletal muscles, causing fatigue, drooping eyelids, severe muscle pain, dark urine and progressive respiratory paralysis.

“By the time the patient arrives breathless, the window for intervention is already closing,” the authors cautioned. With no rapid diagnostic kits and no species-specific antivenom, treatment relies only on supportive care — often inadequate in severe cases.

While countries such as Australia use polyvalent sea snake antivenom capable of neutralising several species, some of which are also found in Indian waters, India neither produces this antivenom nor imports it.

The IJMR review attributes this gap to limited commercial incentive, difficulty in venom collection, high production costs and the persistent perception that sea snake envenomation is a minor issue. But experts say the perception is misleading.

“The real burden is hidden in coastal poverty,” said Oinam Gambhir Singh, one of the study’s co-authors. “Fishermen who die at sea rarely enter any database — but families and villages know the cost.”

Compensation for snakebite deaths varies widely across States — from Rs 20,000 in West Bengal to Rs4 lakh in several northern States. But these policies overwhelmingly address land-based snakebites. A fisherman bitten on land often receives compensation; a fisherman bitten in the sea by a sea snake — during the very act of earning his livelihood — rarely does.

None of the States recognises sea snake envenomation as a distinct occupational hazard, despite its high fatality rate and its clear association with fishing activity.

The researchers have outlined a compact, phased set of recommendations to address sea snake envenomation in India.

They suggested Immediate priorities like importing available sea snake antivenom while indigenous research is initiated, standardising national guidelines for diagnosis and clinical management, and strengthening frontline response through training of coastal healthcare workers and first-aid awareness programmes for fishing communities.

Scientific and surveillance measures focus on creating a national sea snake envenomation registry to enable accurate surveillance and evidence-based policymaking. The authors also call for supporting venom research and cross-reactivity studies to facilitate domestic antivenom development, alongside the creation of rapid diagnostic kits tailored to Indian sea snake species. Making sea snake envenomation a notifiable condition is seen as essential to close existing data gaps.

Long-term system strengthening involves establishing public–private partnerships for indigenous antivenom manufacturing, upgrading coastal district hospitals with specialised snakebite units, introducing insurance coverage and uniform compensation for affected fishing communities, and building international collaborations with Southeast Asian and Australian institutions experienced in marine envenomation, said the study.