Participatory approaches and open data on venomous snakes: A neglected opportunity in the global snakebite crisis?

Snakebite: A humanitarian and data crisisWith over 100,000 human deaths and 400,000 cases of physical disability globally every year [1], snakebite is a major neglected tropical killer dramatically affecting poor and rural communities in Africa, Latin America, and Asia [2].These communities have no political voice, and Me ´decins Sans Frontières refers to a "public health emergency gone under the radar," stressing the lack of reliable reporting systems and an important underestimation of the global snakebite burden [1, 2, 3].In addition, pharmaceutical companies have poor market incentive for antivenom production [2], and the recognition of snakebite at the World Health Organization (WHO) has fluctuated over recent years, lacking sufficient political and scientific support and only making it back on to the list of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the World Health Assembly (WHA) of 2017 [4].In 2010, WHO identified 219 medically important venomous snakes (MIVS) and mapped their global distribution based on scientific literature, published reference texts, museum collection databases, and expert opinion [1].These maps help identify at-risk populations to provide lifesaving care where needed [1].However, snake ecology is complex, and our understanding of the geographical distribution of MIVS is limited [2, 5], especially considering current global anthropogenic changes (e.g., climate change and urbanization) [5].The ecology of zoonoses such as avian influenza and their spread through animal movements have been well studied [6].Besides the work of professionals, new approaches based on citizen participatory surveillance (e.g., birdwatchers) and mobile technologies have considerably improved the amount of data collected on animal distribution and our understanding of disease ecology [7].So-called "citizen science" (CS) [7,8] and "action ecology" [9] could be applied to other animals relevant to public health, including snakes.To our knowledge, the 2010 WHO database did not receive any contribution from CS projects.Similarly, open-access biodiversity databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (www.gbif.org)and VertNet (www.vertnet.org)have promoted biological research in recent years [9, 10] but remain poorly exploited in public health and applied herpetology.These two platforms contain both historical and recent data resulting from cooperation between institutions, enhancing data retrieval and sharing [9].The GBIF platform also gathers data from CS projects, such as those from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.