That's partly economic: to be effective, you'd need to provide all of the at-risk population with boots, whilst with antivenin, the cost is treatment for those

That's partly economic: to be effective, you'd need to provide all of the at-risk population with boots, whilst with antivenin, the cost is treatment for those affected. It wouldn't surprise me if the cost of prevention was higher than the cost of treatment. Secondly, there's also a cultural/environmental question: if the population generally wear sandals or go barefoot, could they be easily persuaded to don protective boots - especially if their feet are then continually hot and wet? A Discomfort aside, could the boots increase the risk of other issues, such as trenchfoot?