Why won’t people wear boots in the snakebite capital of the world?

In the farmlands of India—the country with the highest rate of snakebite deaths in the world, at nearly 58 000 a year—a unique initiative once held great promise. Gnaneswar CH, a wildlife conservationist, spearheaded a project in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district from December 2019 to May 2020 to equip farmers with simple tools designed to reduce the occurrence of snakebites: boots, gloves, flashlights, and mosquito nets. The kits, each costing about 1000 rupees (£10; €11; $12), aimed to protect members of vulnerable communities from deadly encounters with snakes.

Months later, however, Gnaneswar was left puzzled. The mosquito nets were being used for fishing and the boots lay untouched, gathering dust. What had gone wrong? The answer, he says, is an essential truth about public health interventions: even the best solutions can falter if they clash with local customs and practices.