6 ms·
It should surprise no one that in much of Africa there are economic and sociopolitical challenges involved in supplying antivenin. It's an economic challenge e
by harshreality 10y ago
It should surprise no one that in much of Africa there are economic and sociopolitical challenges involved in supplying antivenin. It's an economic challenge even in first world countries, and antivenin is expensive as a result.
There's no mention of what the snakes are doing in the first place when humans run across them and get bitten, or how much good those snakes are doing by saving people in those countries from a host of rodent-transmitted diseases.
The article seems to focus on two things:
1. Focus less on advanced gene-splicing antivenin R&D, and more on traditional antivenin production, because Africa has unmet demand. This is merely a coy way of saying [more] developed countries should supply and subsidize antivenin for less developed countries that can't pay.
Rather than blame developed countries for focusing on R&D that doesn't solve Africa's immediate problem, some understanding would be in order. Genetic engineering approaches, once R&D is done, probably scale better than the traditional way of producing antivenin. Furthermore, anaphylaxis is a common problem with many kinds of antivenin and other vaccines. Genetic engineering approaches, which don't rely on purification of antibodies from animal blood, lead to fewer, and perhaps not any, extraneous proteins in the antivenin. That means less risk of an allergic reaction.
I don't know if that's the entire reason, but pharma companies don't intentionally throw away money on R&D. If they're funding something, there's a good reason.
2. Improve the economics, politics, and scientific awareness of developing regions of Africa (that is to say, most of it). I'm sure nobody has thought of that before.
"Africa has an antivenin supply problem, and all we have to do to fix it is modernize, educate, and politically stabilize those countries." Oh, that's all? Why didn't someone say something before? Such an easy and obvious solution to all those untreated snakebites.
- vacri 10y ago> It's an economic challenge even in first world countries, and antivenin is expensive as a result. Here in Australia, the funnelweb spider (around Sydney) is our only particularly lethal arachnid. Recently they've been struggling to find enough spiders to milk for the antivenom, and so have started to ask the general public to lend a hand in catching the damn things. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/nsw-reminded-to-help-catch-funnel-web-spiders-to-help-with-antivenom-stocks-20151010-gk5wbj.html http://www.smh.com.au/environment/nsw-reminded-to-help-catch... Interestingly, the 'spider safety kit' in that article is "a glass jar and a plastic ruler" :)
- enkid 10y agoAsking the public to catch venomous spiders so they can produce anti-venom seems potentially counter productive.
- michaelbuddy 10y agoMaybe not. Clearly the vast majority of spider bites are accidental, the recipient being unaware. When you're actually looking for the critters you're on your toes so to speak. Now if they said 'Reward! $10,000 for every xyz spider captured, then you'll have a lot of dumb people doing a lot of foolish things.
- tunap 10y agoThe problem, as I experienced with two black widow bites a few weeks ago is I did not realize I had been bitten until the symptoms were in full effect. By the time I realized it was not a flu virus it was already too late. I didn't even realize they were spider bite until the weeping craters appeared at the presumed mosquito bite site.
- harshreality 10y agoAre you sure? Alleged spider bites without a captured spider (or by comparison to previously observed bites... with captured spider in those cases) are often misdiagnosed. With recluse/widow/hobo spider bites, play devil's advocate. Could it have been some other bite, an infection, allergic reaction, or maybe even food poisoning? Could it have been a chigger bite, perhaps? Some kind of hymenoptera? Break down local and systemic symptoms, carefully and critically. The classic widow bite symptom is pain. That's not easy to confuse with the flu or with a mosquito bite. Other symptoms like fever, nausea, and vomiting might be caused by a spider bite... but they might not be, particularly when the wound site is either infected or showing an allergic reaction (which can lead to a constellation of other symptoms that confuses the diagnosis), and particularly when there's no accompanying pain. Even the classic flesh-destruction of brown recluse bites is not always caused by brown recluses. Plenty of "brown recluse" bites are really flesh eating bacteria infections following some other kind of bite, sting, or other small injury. Funnel-web bites are a different thing entirely. One component of their venom specifically targets primates.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago> If they're funding something, there's a good reason. Capitalism is amoral. There is only necessarily a reason. I would say it must be a financial reason, but it's actually not necessarily even a rational reason. I know it's not always popular around here, but sometimes when ethics and morals conflict with money and power, the problem needs to be solved by regulation. This is hard.