Vipers, mambas and taipans: the escalating health crisis over snakebites
It should surprise no one that in much of Africa there are economic and sociopolitical challenges involved in supplying antivenin.  It&#x27;s an economic challenge even in first world countries, and antivenin is expensive as a result.<p>There&#x27;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.<p>The article seems to focus on two things:<p>1. Focus less on advanced gene-splicing antivenin R&amp;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&#x27;t pay.<p>Rather than blame developed countries for focusing on R&amp;D that doesn&#x27;t solve Africa&#x27;s immediate problem, some understanding would be in order. Genetic engineering approaches, once R&amp;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&#x27;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.<p>I don&#x27;t know if that&#x27;s the entire reason, but pharma companies don&#x27;t intentionally throw away money on R&amp;D. If they&#x27;re funding something, there&#x27;s a good reason.<p>2. Improve the economics, politics, and scientific awareness of developing regions of Africa (that is to say, most of it). I&#x27;m sure nobody has thought of that before.<p><i>&quot;Africa has an antivenin supply problem, and all we have to do to fix it is modernize, educate, and politically stabilize those countries.&quot;</i>  Oh, that&#x27;s all?  Why didn&#x27;t someone say something before? Such an easy and obvious solution to all those untreated snakebites.