Africa: Africa Lacks Snake Bite Drugs
The Nation (Nairobi)
November 14, 2006
Posted to the web November 13, 2006
There is a serious shortage of the anti-snake bite drug in Africa, which could lead to increased deaths, an international seminar was told yesterday.
The conference on snake bites at Hemmingway Beach Hotel at Watamu, Malindi District, heard that the crisis had hit most African countries, Kenya included.
A snake bite researcher, Prof David Warrell of Oxford University, the UK, said that of every 100 needy cases, only one could have access to the drug.
Presenting a paper titled "Invenoming by Snakebite in Africa", he said the available medicine was too expensive for most African governments.
Prof Warrell cited the spitting cobra, the saw-scaled viper and the puff-adder as the most medically important snakes in Africa.
The "less medically important" include the black and green mambas and the neurotoxic cobra, he added.
Prof Warrell said most drug companies in Africa had stopped production, leading to the scarcity.
"When the companies became private, shareholders preferred other lines of production, which made more profit compared to snake anti-venom which had less demand and was expensive to produce," he said. "As a result, the companies reduced the quantities they produced and raised the price of the drug."
The seminar was organised by Bio-Ken Snake Farm of Watamu, the biggest on the continent and holding all types of African snakes.
The expert noted, however, that there was hope for the future, arguing that some companies had started producing the drug specifically for the African snakes.
"New international anti-venom producers have started producing the drug for Africa," he said.
"In fact, clinical trials are currently in progress in Nigeria," participants heard.
Traditional approaches are also being considered as the World Health Organisation shows renewed interest in the matter, the seminar was told.
Other experts who presented papers included Dr Moses Chisale, the WHO representative for Africa, who presented "Guidelines for the Clinical Management of Snake Bites in Africa", and Dr Bernard Odhiambo of the Malindi district hospital, whose paper was titled, "Snake bite Pattern and Workload in Malindi."
Yet others were Dr Eugene Erulu of Watamu Nursing Home and James Ashe Antivenom Trust chairman Sande Ashe.
