Herbal antidote to krait venom discovered

In a discovery that may save thousands of lives in rural India in future, scientists have found a cocktail of three herbal compounds, which can effectively neutralise the poison of Indian banded krait, when the concoction is applied together with commercial anti-snake venom serum.

The synthetic herbal compounds were found to be superior to the commercial anti-serum in cancelling the effect of venom of krait -- one of the common poisonous snakes of India.

Scientists at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), Kolkata, and University of Calcutta, who identified, characterised and established the usefulness of these plant-based compounds, have suggested a combination therapy for snakebite victims.

“The major problem we encounter with the anti-venom therapy is that anti-venom is generally not available in rural health centres where maximum snakebite victims come first,” said Ashish Kumar Mukherjee, a professor at Tezpur University who specialises on snake venom and is not connected to the IICB research.

“It is always desirable to have alternative therapy to anti-venom, which may be applied in conjugation with anti-venom,” Mukherjee, a visiting scientist at the University of Northern Colorado, told Deccan Herald.

“Since plant constituents are stable at room temperature, plant-derived anti-snake venom compounds can be stored in rural health centres of the country,” said Mukherjee.

India has no database on snake bite victims but hospital records from all but six States reported only 1,364 snakebite deaths in 2008.

An international group of public health researchers have suggested that the figure was under-reporting. They have said that snakebites killed as many as 45,900 people each year in India, pointing out that many victims of snakebite choose village-based traditional therapists and most die outside government hospitals.

Annual snakebite deaths were greatest in the states of Uttar Pradesh (8,700), Andhra Pradesh (5,200), and Bihar (4,500). Though kraits are commonly found in eastern India and other parts of South Asia, there is no anti-venom available for their venom.

Anti-snake venom serum raised against spectacled cobra, common krait, Russell’s viper and saw-scaled viper is used for treating banded krait victims. Rural people often used herbal preparations as an antidote, the Calcutta team said releasing its findings in a recent issue of the “Indian Journal of Medical Research”.

The active ingredient was found in Indian Sarsaparilla plant. It negated the fatal effects of a chemical known as phospholipase A2, which is one of the major components of venom released by cobra, krait and Russell’s viper, he said.