It's ironic that virtually every medical organization and practitioner wears the snake symbol, yet we have no real effective treatments for the people getting bitten,' says Dr.

Its limitations are fairly well known at this point and we need a better bridge to survival. 'Antivenom is necessary, but not sufficient to manage this problem. Sakthivel Vaiyapuri of Reading University in the United Kingdom, a co-author on the report. With many combinations for potential testing, the team is now working intensively with chemist and snake venom expert, Dr. Inhibitors of other types of venom could be combined with those working against paralysis to form a complete antidote. Although the mice in this experiment were each treated only once to maintain a consistent protocol, a nasally administered antidote could, in practice, be administered multiple times without needles. In groups given higher doses of cobra venom (2 to 5 times the lethal dose) all mice succumbed, but those treated with a single dose of neostigmine survived significantly longer than the controls. 10 of 15 mice given the lowest dose of venom, followed by the treatment within 10 minutes, survived and later exhibited completely normal behavior, while 100 percent of control mice died.

The results of this pilot study were recently published in the Journal of Tropical Medicine.ĭuring the course of the experiment, separate groups of mice were given varying doses of venom (all above lethal limits) and then treated with the antiparalytic treatment at two different time intervals: within 1-2 minutes after envenomation and 10 minutes after envenomation.

Universal antidote