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Antivenin: |
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Danny13 Senior Member Joined: 03 Oct 2004 No. of posts: 52  View other posts by Danny13 |
Posted: 07 Oct 2004 Do you get antivenin for adder venom? Or is the venom not strong enough for the need to administer it, I thought they might just use other medicines to keep symptoms down. |
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-LAF Senior Member Joined: 03 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 317 View other posts by -LAF |
Posted: 07 Oct 2004 Hi Danny, Adder bites, whilse generally not considered life threatening, can be serious. There are lots of factors that can play a role in the outcome of a bite. These include the size, age and general health of the person bitten, the amount of venom injected by the snake (varies from none to a lot!), the age of the snake (the venom composition can is dfferent in juveniles and adults). People even react differently to the effects of the venom. In UK hospitals the guidelines laid down by the poisons unit suggest that doctors only administer antivenom when symptoms reach a certain level (this level can be dictated by local symptoms even if systematic effects aren't apparent). In addition the doctor in charge is free to act on his own judgement outside of these guidelines. Most hospitals in areas where adders occur will keep a supply of antivenom, and doctors will certainly administer it if they feel the patient will bennefit. AV, however, has it's own side effects that the medics may need to dea with. Regardless of whether AV is administered, adder bite patients will typically be given antibiotics and antihistamines, and symptoms of envenomation will be treated actively (ephedrine for shock etc). As there is really no such thing as a 'typical' adder bite there is no standard course of treatment. Treatment depends on the severity of the bite and of the opinion of the doctor treating it. Hope this helps a bit. Regards, Lee. Lee Fairclough |
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Danny13 Senior Member Joined: 03 Oct 2004 No. of posts: 52 View other posts by Danny13 |
Posted: 07 Oct 2004 I was just wondering because adder venom is hemotoxic which is less deadly than neurotoxic and a typical adder bite isnt that serious. But of course people can have allergic reactions to the AV itself which can be more serious than the actual bite. To make Antivenom you have to collect venom which can then be made into antivenom correct. So who actually does this and where is this exraction facility? |
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David Bird Forum Specialist Joined: 17 Feb 2003 No. of posts: 515 View other posts by David Bird |
Posted: 08 Oct 2004 From what I know you cannot make Antivenom from Venom it is not a chemical or any other process. What has happened in the past is that the Venom is injected into horses in relatively small amount , for a horse that is, to begin wih about 1/10 of the lethal amount, this is then increased weekly untill the horse then receives about twice the lethal amount in each injection. The horse produces antibodies which neutralise the venom, as we would do with an infection in our body. Blood is then taken from the horse and the serum containing the antivenom antibodies is separated. Purification and removal of non essentila parts of the serum usually occur before the antivenom is sold.The horse can be used for many years as a producer of antivenom with only sporadic injections of venom to keep the production of antibodies up. It is the horse serum part of the antivenom that a lot of people are allergic to, this is also true of other antibody injections that are produced in this way. The horse is used because it is a large animal and can take a large amount of venom and produce a large amount of antibodies, I suppose one could use any animal with the same procedure but the amounts produced would be smaller. I know sheep are used for some other antibody production as humans seem to be less likely to be allergic to sheep serum but not sure if they have been used for commercial production of antivenom anywhere. Some antivenom is produced as being effective for just one species, monovalent, whilst others are polyvalent and are produced to work on several species. As far as I know the antivenom still used for the Adder bite is known as Zagreb antivenom and is produced in Zagreb and is effective for most of the European Vipers, if not all, dont know about some of the Turkish & Greek ones though. I am sure Wolfgang may be able to add more as he is the venom man. British Herpetological Society Librarian and member of B.H.S Conservation Committee. Self employed Herpetological Consultant and Field Worker. |
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Wolfgang Wuster Senior Member Joined: 23 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 326 View other posts by Wolfgang Wuster |
Posted: 09 Oct 2004 Danny, The "hemotoxic less dangerous than neurotoxic" equation does not hold. What matters is the lethality of the venom to humans, and how much is injected into you by the snake. There are plenty of hemotoxic snakes that can kill you very easily, and I suspect that the majority of snake bite deaths in the world are cause by mostly hemotoxic/cytotoxic vipers. As to the need for antivenom after a bite, basically, no two snake bites are alike, and the quantity of venom is what determines (in large part) how bad it gets. Your treatment must therefore depend on how serious your bite is, not on some preconceived notion of how dangerous the snake is. If you have a serious bite or life-threatening bite from an adder (and make no mistake, these can and do occur, although only as a small percentage of cases), then you need antivenom, period. David's description of production etc. is spot on. There are now a few sheep=based antivenoms in production, but they are a minority. Apparently, some aspect of the horse IgG molecule (the antibody that neutralises the venom) makes it more prone to causing allergic reactions than sheep or most other mammalian IgG molecules. Cheers, Wolfgang Wolfgang Wüster School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor http://sbsweb.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/ |
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