AsianScientist (Sep. 24, 2014) – By Dalmeet Singh Chawla – The Indian developers of an antivenom formulation designed to be taken orally are hoping to develop it into a tablet that could be taken straight after snakebites.
Antivenom is currently injected into patients. Since injections are often stored at hospitals that are many miles away from the rural locations where most snakebites occur, patients must usually wait for hours after being bitten before they can receive treatment. Three-quarters of patients who die from snakebites do so before they reach hospital.
Because of this, “we have felt that taking care of transit time damage will be most crucial”, says researcher Roshnara Mishra of the University of Calcutta, India, who led the team that published details of the formulation last month in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
In the formulation, antivenom is coated in alginate, a cheap and non-toxic gum-like substance made from sugar. The researchers showed that this protected the antivenom from being digested in intestines taken from mice, and that it remained effective at neutralising snake venoms after passing through this tissue.
“A globally initiated ‘antivenom as first aid’ can change the mortality rate markedly,” says Mishra.
Yet antivenoms can be dangerous, says Matthew Lewin, a researcher at the California Academy of Sciences, United States. They have high complication rates and, if mishandled, the side effects can be worse than the bites themselves and therefore should always be given in a hospital. Now, Lewin has developed a cheap antiparalytic nasal spray to treat snakebite victims.
“It’s a cool idea to cloak the antivenom in alginate. Who wouldn’t want to be able to swallow something to counteract deadly venom?” he says.
Antivenom is also expensive, costing around US$70 per dose. But Mishra says that any oral formulation based on alginate, which is inexpensive, would cost little more than this. Her team now plans to develop the oral formulation further and eventually test it in clinical trials.
The article can be found at: Bhattacharya et al. (2014) Viper and Cobra Venom Neutralization by Alginate Coated Multicomponent Polyvalent Antivenom Administered by the Oral Route.
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Source: SciDev.Net.
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