The bite of a snake ranks high among the most traumatic and potentially lethal situations a person can experience. In fact, some species can kill an adult man with very little venom, and in just a few minutes. Fortunately, there are many experts out there who focus on collecting the different venoms and preparing their antiserums, but the process is highly complex, and extremely costly…
Coastal taipans, eastern browns, tiger snakes, common death adders, mulga snakes… in a word, Australia. If you ever travel to that country, I guarantee you do NOT want to encounter any of those creatures outside a controlled environment. However, there are people who handle them every day with a single goal: milking, or rather, extracting their venom to begin the process of creating antiserums. The official Business Insider channel on YouTube allows us to enter this particular world and the enormous challenges it faces:
Snake Venom: Saving Lives, One Bite at a Time
The video begins with an introduction to the work of Billy Collett, operations manager at the Somersby reptile park in New South Wales. It immediately becomes clear that he is a highly experienced professional, simply by the fact that he handles some of the deadliest snakes on the planet (300 just in that facility) with a hook, a stick, and wearing shorts. In one of his demonstrations, the tiger snake "injects" enough venom to kill 50 people, and then he repeats the process with a coastal taipan, which could kill 200 people on average "without difficulty."
But obtaining the venom is only the first half of a very complex equation. All samples are frozen and dehydrated until they crystallize (this simplifies their transport, and they last longer). The processed venom is then sent to antiserum production centers, which use horses. The horse receives a very controlled dose of the venom and begins to produce short-term antibodies. The healthier the horse, the greater the amount of antibodies, which must be separated from the plasma.
Logically, the cost to produce antiserum is enormous. Depending on the snake, a person may need between 10 and 20 doses, which translates into thousands of dollars per treatment, a prohibitive price for many regions. In some cases, government intervention has been the best weapon to combat scarcity. Costa Rica records just one or two deaths per year, and the same happens in Australia. The key in those countries is their free access to treatments. Finally, one more fact: Reinventing antivenoms is a scientific priority, and the dream of creating low-cost pills is getting closer every day.
