A step towards a universal antivenom: Curbing the toll of snakebites

Next for years scientists have been trying to reverse the terrible toll that snake bites have on societies in tropical regions, whether in sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America. In some cases these bites can lead to amputation and even Death Race. Now on to develop a universal anti venom, something scientists have so far failed to do because of the complexity of such venoms. Let's bring in our science editor here, Julia Seeger. Julia, here in temperate zones like in France, snake bites are extremely rare. Consequences are well controlled. Elsewhere in the world though, these bites represent a real public health issue, don't they? Indeed, it's a huge public issue in all the intertropical zone. Let it be, as you said, in Africa, also in Latin America, but also in Asia. Now it's reported that there are about 6,000,000 snake bites per year around the world, leading to the death of about 130 to 100 and 40,000 people and 200,000 mutilations, including numerous amputations. And This is why it's such a huge issue. And those numbers are actually underestimated because they often happen in rural areas and so they're under reported to authorities. And the problem is getting worse because there are more and more attacks, more and more snake bite bites. The reason why is because in most of this, those countries, the, you know, the, the, the urban areas are becoming bigger and the rural areas and the forest areas are becoming smaller. So the two ecosystems are coming together. There's more interaction between human and snakes and so more accidents. Habitat was a big problem ecologically worldwide. Of course, snake bites, though purely defensive you would expect. Yeah, they are indeed we, we snakes don't actually prey on men. They are indeed accidents. Now we actually know of 3000 species of of snakes worldwide, 600 are them of them are venomous, but only a dozen are considered to be deadly and lethal. And there are two different families among those deadly snakes. So on one hand you have the dilapides, so the cobras, the mem, the mambas, you have the viperides. So these are are really the two different families of deadly snakes here. Now, they all have these little hooks so that they can deliver the venom, but they don't have the same type of venom. So for instance, the viperities, they're going to have what we call a cytotoxic venom. So they're going to cause necrosis. So this is what actually leads to amputation. Now for the other type, the elapidies, and this is perhaps more interesting for science, they have what we call neurotoxic damage. So what they do is that they paralyze their prey because they act on the synapsis. And so the the information, the nervous information can't flow into the cell. And that's interesting to science because it's opening up the way to new painkillers and to a new range of analgesic treatment. So we're really looking into those venoms, into those molecules that could perhaps block the channels that exist in the cell and that are responsible for detecting the pain signal. Interesting. So what should you do if you are unfortunate enough to be the victim of a snake bite? Well, if it's a legal lethal snake, then it's a race against time. And the first thing is, you know, doctors are going to try to eliminate the venom from the body. And the only way we have for that is anti venoms. Now, the problem with anti venoms, they actually work. They save lives, but they also trigger a lot of side effects because what an anti venom is, is actually a cocktail of antibodies of different types of venoms. And, you know, for years now, scientists have been trying to create a universal serum, But the problem is that you would actually need a serum for each type of snake that bites you. And when a snake bites you, you don't even know what type of snake it was. So it's actually quite difficult to treat patients. But a few weeks ago, there was actually a huge breakthrough in the United States. They've discovered a potent antibody that can neutralize one of the key neurotoxin produced by the venom of one of the families that I showed showed to you earlier, the elapidies. So it's not a universal serum, but it's taking care of at least 50% of the problem. Interesting. Oh, that's good. Very good news I would expect there. That's our science editor, Julia Seeger. Thanks so much for that.