PubMed · 5913719
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1966-08-19. Adder-bite in Britain.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5913719/
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Active immunization against infectious disease is important. However, much of our world faces poverty, social injustice, and warfare, all of which cause universal immunization to remain a distant dream. Agents that provide passive immunity thus remain essential biologicals. The most important of these are human or equine antisera against rabies, tetanus, diphtheria, and snake antivenins. Homologous products are either unavailable or unaffordable in places where they are needed the most. Less expensive heterologous (equine) antisera can be purified and are safe to use, but these antisera are also in short supply. Monoclonal antibodies have been developed but are even less likely to be affordable in poor countries. Several traditional sources of equine antisera are becoming depleted as a result of economic disincentives; a poor reputation based on the high adverse reaction rates of the old, unpurified products; and the activities of animal rights activists who object to the use of horses as blood donors. Purified, pepsin-digested equine antisera are preferred; but developing countries sometimes are forced to make crude products that are less safe or have no specific therapy available at all.
The bites of six species of venomous elapid snakes in Central Province Papua New Guinea produce similar clinical syndromes. Optimal management of envenomed patients involves the use of monospecific antivenom. In this study, Venom Detection Kits (VDKs) (CSL Diagnostics, Melbourne) were used to try to make a specific diagnosis in envenomed patients at their admission. VDKs detected venom in admission bite site swabs from 39 to 46 patients (85%). Thirty-eight of these patients were shown to have been bitten by taipans. In all cases where venom was detected by the VDK, this correlated with subsequent laboratory enzyme immunoassay results. Selective use of VDKs in Central Province could allow more widespread use of monospecific antivenoms and produce considerable financial savings.
It was found that bee (Apis mellifera) venom, red-back spider (Latrodectus mactans) venom, blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena maculosa) venom, ten different snake venoms, phospholipase A2 and four snake toxins caused sphero-echinocytosis of human red blood cells at 200 ng/ml. Most venoms and toxins lost the ability to deform human red blood cells when their components of less than mol. wt 10,000 were applied. In a number of cases the sphero-echinocytotic effect was also inhibited by blood sera of Notechis scutatus and Pseudonaja textilis.