The World Health Organization has launched a database of worldwide poisonous venomous (I am informed that venomous and poisonous do not mean the same thing, I apologize) snakes and available venom antidotes. It’s a far cry from the sociological data sets I’m used to seeing from WHO, but also potentially very useful! The new database is at http://apps.who.int/bloodproducts/snakeantivenoms/database/default.htm.

Database nav is on the left. You can search by region (dropdown menus) or by snake name (common name or species; dropdown menus and keyword search.) There’s also a search for antivenom products (product or manufacturer.) I did a search for coral and got a table of 13 results. The table included a picture of the snake (except for the first three), the category of danger the snake represents (either 1 or 2, meaning either the highest or secondary medical importance) the common name, and the species name.

Click on the image of the snake and scientific information, the regions where it is active, and available antivenoms. There’s also a larger snake image which is downloadable as a PDF, with more images below it.

I found some of the navigation a little confusing (click on an antivenom name and it gives you a list of snakes that it’s useful for, but the list sometimes looks like you’ve gone back to your search results) but it’s a useful set of information searchable in a variety of ways. But man, if ever a site needed a shorter URL and a mobile version…