This archive report was first published on 29 October 2019.
Published on October 29, 2019, a Kenyan mother's tragic loss highlights the need for effective antivenom in the country. Beth Mwende's three-year-old daughter, Mercy, died after being bitten by a snake in their home town in Kitui county, 160 km east of Nairobi.
Although snakebites are common in the region, antivenom medication is scarce. Mwende took her daughter to a traditional healer, who used stones to try and draw out the poison, but Mercy died within hours.
The Kenya Snakebite Research and Intervention Centre (KSRIC) is working to change this. Funded by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the centre aims to have East Africa's first locally produced antivenom on the market within five years.
Researchers at the centre extract venom from snakes and study it before injecting small amounts into donor animals, which then produce antibodies to be harvested and purified into antivenom.
“Up to now, no one has produced any kind of antivenom in Kenya,” said senior snake handler Geoffrey Maranga Kepha.
However, many ineffective products circulate in sub-Saharan Africa, said David Williams, head of the Australian Venom Research Unit. “One Indian product marketed in Ghana as a replacement to Sanofi’s actually increased the death rate for snakebites,” he added.
Sanofi Pasteur, part of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis, stopped producing antivenom for African snakes in 2010 due to low demand and competition from a cheaper supplier.
The centre is teaching communities that swift use of antivenom saves lives, said veterinarian and head researcher George Adinoh.
