20 May 25
First Aid Practices
First-Aid Snakebite Drug Could Save Thousands of Lives
A decade ago, Joe Slowinski of the California Academy of Sciences went into the jungles of Myanmar in search of new species of snakes and other vertebrates. One morning, he groggily reached into a bag of vipers he thought to be harmless and when he pulled his hand out, attached to it was a banded krait – among the most poisonous snakes on the planet.
He knew he was in trouble, and to make matters worse, the date was September 11, 2001. He held on for a little more than a day, but with all the chaos bacdayk in the US, an emergency evacuation never materialized. He eventually succumbed to the krait’s neurotoxin.
Last week, a team led by an Academy doctor reported a new method of delivery for a well-known hospital drug that might have saved Slowinski’s life, had it been available. But more importantly, the travel-friendly nasal spray might someday save some of the estimated 125,000 people across the world who die from snakebites every year.