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Cheap, innovative venom treatments could save tens of thousands of snakebite victims:
[...] snakebites are finally getting the attention they've long needed. In 2017, the WHO officially recognized snakebites as a neglected tropical disease. That designation has led to an influx of funding for innovative research; the largest, more than $100 million, came in 2019 from the Wellcome Trust.
Effective snakebite treatments do exist, and those antivenoms are considered the "gold standard" of care. If a victim receives the right antivenom soon after a bite — within an hour or two — then the chances of survival are "very, very high," says Nicholas Casewell, a biomedical scientist at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England.
But that "if" looms large, with big challenges remaining, including the difficulties of speedy access to care and the fact that most anti-venoms work against just a few of the hundreds of dangerous species of venomous snakes. Antivenoms are also "a technology that has seen limited innovation for 120 years," says Andreas Laustsen, a biotech researcher and entrepreneur at the Technical University of Denmark in Kongens Lyngby.
Now, researchers from disparate fields of science are coming together to reimagine the way snakebites are managed. Casewell, Laustsen and others are tweaking current treatments, repurposing pharmaceuticals and even engineering toxin-stopping nanoparticles. The work offers hope that people everywhere, even in remote areas, will eventually be able to safely coexist with snakes.
Venomous snakebites are painful and often deadly. This is an in-depth article that describes problems with accessibility, availability, cost, efficacy, side-effects, and more. For example, an antivenom for one species may not work at all on a different species -- and there are hundreds of them. Further, side effects from the wrong anti-venom are not insignificant. Well worth reading the entire article.
Journal References:
Jeffrey O'Brien, Shih-Hui Lee, Shunsuke Onogi, et al. Engineering the Protein Corona of a Synthetic Polymer Nanoparticle for Broad-Spectrum Sequestration and Neutralization of Venomous Biomacromolecules, (DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b10950)
Jeffrey O'Brien, Shih-Hui Lee, José María Gutiérrez, et al. Engineered nanoparticles bind elapid snake venom toxins and inhibit venom-induced dermonecrosis, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0006736)
Harrison, Robert A, Casewell, Nicholas R, Ainsworth, Stuart A, et al. time is now: a call for action to translate recent momentum on tackling tropical snakebite into sustained benefit for victims [open], Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DOI: 10.1093/trstmh/try134)
Wilson Suraweera, David Warrell, Romulus Whitaker, et al. Trends in snakebite deaths in India from 2000 to 2019 in a nationally representative mortality study, (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.54076)
Shirin Ahmadi, Manuela B. Pucca, Jonas A. Jürgensen, et al. An in vitro methodology for discovering broadly-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67654-7)
Laura-Oana Albulescu, Melissa S. Hale, Stuart Ainsworth, et al. Preclinical validation of a repurposed metal chelator as an early-intervention therapeutic for hemotoxic snakebite [$], Science Translational Medicine (DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aay8314)
Laura-Oana Albulescu, Chunfang Xie, Stuart Ainsworth, et al. A therapeutic combination of two small molecule toxin inhibitors provides pancontinental preclinical efficacy against viper snakebite [$], bioRxiv (DOI: 10.1101/2020.05.13.094599)
Yu Hoshino, Hiroyuki Koide, Takeo Urakami, et al Recognition, Neutralization, and Clearance of Target Peptides in the Bloodstream of Living Mice by Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Nanoparticles: A Plastic Antibody, (DOI: 10.1021/ja102148f)
Tarek Mohamed Abd El-Aziz, Corinne Ravelet, Jordi Molgo, et al. Efficient functional neutralization of lethal peptide toxins in vivo by oligonucleotides [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-07554-5)
Vishwanath Hebbi, Kathiresan Pandi, Devendra Kumar, et al. Process for production and purification of lethal toxin neutralizing factor (LTNF) from E. coli and its economic analysis, Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology (DOI: 10.1002/jctb.5537)
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 20 2020, @10:54AM (5 children)
You've got to identify the snake that bites you. Here, in the US, we only have four poisonous snakes to worry about. Rattler, copperhead, and moccasin - and then we have that little bastid coral snake.
Other places in the world, they got all kinds of nasty snakes. If it bites you, you have to identify it to get the proper treatment. Hope you have your camera ready before the snake strikes! Better yet if you can capture it. Dead or alive, if you can bring it to the clinic or hospital with you, you can get the correct treatment. Well, you can get the correct treatment if it's available.
If you've been snakebit, and can't tell the doctor what it was, you can pretty much put your head between your knees, and kiss your butt goodbye.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 3, Funny) by WizardFusion on Sunday September 20 2020, @11:44AM
You might be "lucky" and still have it attached to you when you get to the hospital :)
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Sunday September 20 2020, @02:07PM (1 child)
Not neccesarily. South Africa Vaccine Producers have a polivalent antivenin. Take a look at http://www.savp.co.za/ [savp.co.za]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:25AM
Polyvalents only work on species with similar venom components. They aren't universal so it is still important to know the species or genus of snake that bit you. In the U.S., CroFab and ANAVIP works on most species of bites you are liable to get, but doesn't work on all of them. Since it only works on pit viper bites, at least a couple vials of exotics are supposed to be stored at major regional hospitals, zoos, and research locations in case something else gets you.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 20 2020, @02:25PM
CroFab will take care of the first three, so in the U.S. you just need to know if the snake that bit you was a Coral Snake or other.
The problem in the U.S. is that it's so godawful expensive that many hospitals don't actually stock enough to treat even a single patient and may have a real problem getting enough in time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Monday September 21 2020, @01:24AM
True.
Also, most people do not realize that even if a snake bite does not kill you, it is likely ruined your health for good. I personally would take death in some if not many cases.
BTW, death better than recovery is often true for some other common issues. Hepatitis and virus pneumonia, of which Covid is one among many examples, come to mind.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @12:41PM (3 children)
Snake/spider/etc poisonous bites work by causing oxidative stress and depleting vitamin C. It is the universal antitoxin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @12:44PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpptUsJFCEY [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @01:02PM (1 child)
As usual life saving advice downvoted on soyletnews. No discussion/argument against it, just downvotes by fascists.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30276921/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 4, Touché) by KilroySmith on Sunday September 20 2020, @04:03PM
As usual, medical advice being given by an Anonymous Coward, claiming that it's being suppressed. At least Trump was willing to put his name on his push for hydroxychloroquine and disinfectant injections as valid treatments for Covid-19.
You also realize that your supporting publication basically says that Vitamin C is effective on toxins in a petri dish, right? With no references at all to being effective in humans?
https://xkcd.com/1217/ [xkcd.com]