World running out of snakebite antidote
The treatment is called Fav-Afrique. It's the only anti-venom approved to neutralize the bites of 10 deadly African snakes, like spitting cobras, carpet vipers and black mambas. Fav-Afrique has been produced by just one company, Sanofi Pasteur in France. The company stopped production last year because it was priced out of the anti-venom market. Across the world, about 100,000 people die of snakebites each year, Doctors Without Borders says. Even more have limbs amputated or disfigured because of bites. To put that into perspective, Ebola has killed about 11,000 people in West Africa.
Source: Dr Gabriel Alcoba, 2015,The snakebite medical adviser for Doctors.
