Snakebites and COVID-19: two crises, one research and development opportunity.

### Summary box As the world battles COVID-19, other longstanding global health challenges continue to cause illness, suffering and death. Among them is the neglected crisis of snakebite envenoming (SBE): in the year after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, an estimated 2.7 million SBE led to over 100 000 deaths and 400 000 long-term disabilities in the poorest and most rural communities of Asia, Africa and Latin America.1 Yet the tools used to combat SBE remain woefully inadequate and underexplored, with the most commonly-used antivenom treatments still based on 19th-century technologies. An oft-heard concern during the COVID-19 crisis is that shifts in research and development (R&D) spending may reduce support for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) like SBE. Indeed, in April 2020 the WHO issued interim guidance to postpone NTD programmes and activities because of the pandemic.2 The direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 will likely endure for years. Yet at the same time, long-term opportunities for SBE have also emerged. Notwithstanding major differences in nature, magnitude and global visibility of these two public health crises, experience gained with COVID-19 can be successfully applied to NTDs, and SBE specifically. In this article, we briefly recap the challenging status of current SBE tools and identify key lessons and recommendations from COVID-19 that could help refocus funding and …