COIMBATORE: A
Coimbatore-based scientist
, along with a city-based biotech company and a Krishnagiri-based hospital is developing a snake venom detection kit that may help to determine if the patient has been poisoned after the bite and if it is
hemotoxin or neurotoxin
.
The kit, being developed by Sakthivel Vaiyapuri, an associate professor and researcher at the UK-based University of Reading, Kovaipudur-based ToxiVen Biotech and TCR Multispeciality Hospital, should be ready for production next year.
One of the main issues doctors face while handling patients bitten by snakes is figuring out if they have been poisoned and if, the type of poison, Vaiyapuri said. “Only one in 20 snakes are poisonous and sometimes even poisonous snakes deliver dry bites,” said Vaiyapuri. “If symptoms are not present, doctors find it hard to decide if anti-venom is required or not and delay treatment till symptoms show. That leads to complications. Finding out the type of toxin hemotoxic or neurotoxic, also helps decide on the supportive treatment required.”
The team is also working with researchers at the University of Reading to develop alternates to the anti-snake venom, which is the only treatment available for poisonous snake bites. “The treatment was formulated several decades ago. It requires hospitalization. Some patients are prone to allergic reactions as it is made from horse blood. It is also expensive,” said Vaiyapuri. “We are working on developing small molecule or peptide-based antitoxins, toxic-specific antibodies and monovalent antivenoms, which can be taken by a simple injection or even as a tablet to improve recovery after snake bites,” he said.
India is the snake bite capital of the world, accounting for a third of the world’s snake bite deaths, which is 50,000 out of the 1.5 lakh deaths. “My research and surveys conducted in Tamil Nadu show that the World Health Organisation’s figures are only a fraction of the real scenario,” Vaiyapuri added.
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