Facebook Twitter Pinterest A carpet viper rests on the ground in Kenya’s Baringo county, where venomous snake attacks are frequent. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images“The conventional method of producing antivenom to treat snakebite involves purifying antibodies from venom-immunised horses or sheep and injecting this into patients. On Thursday, the World Health Organization announced a new strategy to halve the number of global snakebite deaths by 2030. “Our research on the ground shows that snakebite victims, faced with no alternative, continue to visit traditional healers as the first point of call,” said Waldmann. The aim is to create “the next generation of snakebite therapies that we will engineer to recognise, bind and nullify all of the toxins of the African and Indian snakes”, said Harrison.

Source: The Guardian May 24, 2019 08:00 UTC