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Since meeting Zamo, Litschka-Koen has become a snakebite activist. She founded the Antivenom Swazi Trust Foundation, which raises money to buy serum and leads symposiums on treatment for local doctors low on relevant skill sets. "To treat a single Mozambique spitting cobra bite can cost an annual salary for a worker," she told me. "Our country can't afford to treat all the snakebite victims—there are too many."Even when healthcare providers can afford antivenoms, they can't always store them. Many serums are liquid or freeze-dried, requiring refrigeration. In rural areas, where 95 percent of regional venom poisonings and 97 percent of deaths can occur, that's either unavailable or inaccessible.And where serums are available and storable, according to Boyer, "the physicians in some places have completely lost faith in antivenom because they've been buying fraudulent products."Warrell singled out two Indian manufacturers as key culprits in Africa: "Bharat Serums and Vaccines and the Serum Institute of India have produced antivenoms that purported to be for Africa, but were misleading and inappropriate." He said the companies used the Asian rather than the African species of particular snakes, leading to relative impotence and increased side effects. In response to studies about the relative ineffectiveness of the antivenom in question when used on bites from African species of the snake, BSaV said that the inclusion of Asian venom is listed in the product inserts or liner notes. However, this information may not always be readily visible to purchasers. "It has been a really, I think, criminal deception of slightly naïve purchasing authorities," Warrell said.This article appeared in the April issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.
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