Snake antivenoms have been around for 125 years, are effective, and can be produced cheaply at scale. Yet Africa, with its abundance of deadly snakes, has an alarming shortage of the life-saving medicine.
Snake antivenoms have been around for 125 years, are effective and can be produced cheaply at scale. Yet Africa, with its abundance of deadly snakes, has an alarming shortage of the life-saving medicine.
Small venom doses are then injected into a large domestic animal, usually a horse, to trigger an immune response and the production of toxin-attacking antibodies. The failure to use antivenom “to save tens of millions of lives… is a shameful failure. Nowhere in the world is this more confronting than in Africa,” says the Global Snakebite Initiative, adding in a report on its website that the “collapse of the snake antivenom market in Africa” was a “medical tragedy”.In a vicious circle, unaffordability leads to lower demand and falling sales, which result in reduced production, higher costs, and raised prices for consumers.
Inconsistent quality standards and lacking oversight have also seen an infiltration of counterfeit and “inappropriate” antivenoms developed for different snake types in other countries. Using the wrong antivenom can be dangerous, even deadly.
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