Anti-venom vaccine research to be initiated shortly

Mumbai: India’s premier biomedical research institute, the city-based Haffkine Research Institute (HRI) will soon begin research to develop a vaccine (anti-venom) for snakebites. The country has observed a rise in the number of snakebite cases. As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), India accounts for 10 per cent of all snakebite cases in the world.

To tackle the mounting issue of snakebites, the HRI has conducted a detailed study to develop a vaccine against these deadly snakebites. Talking to The Asian Age, Dr Nishigandha Naik, director of HRI, said, “Snakebite case are on a rise and our state is on the hitlist. That’s the reason we are looking to develop this vaccination since it was a need of the hour. There are medicines and injections available in the market, but to make the medicines more effective and its viability easy, we will commence the study to develop this vaccine in city. Currently, we are trying to organise funds for the research,” she said.

Dr Naik further added, “The research will be carried out by the Ph.D. students studying in the institute. They will extract venom from different types of snakes and carry out the research on that to develop a vaccine. Snake venom is very effective in developing the anti-venom. As of now, there are no guidelines available with the state government to develop the vaccine. We are trying to gather as much data we can so we can start the research soon.”