Dr Gichuhi Mwethera Director General KIPRE during a media briefing
Snakebite experts from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, and Eswatini converged in Nairobi at the Kenya institute of primate research (KIPRE) to launch the African Snakebite Alliance (ASA) which is set to tackle deadly snakebite venom,the move is geared towards improving health outcomes for people affected by snakebite envenoming and address evidence gaps in policy and practice.
Speaking during the launch the Director General of the research institute Dr Gichuhi Mwethera has said the Institute vhas developed it's snake bite anti venom in a bid to lower the cost of the anti venom and that the Coordination between the groups aims to ensure new research leads to changes on the ground a move crucial for meeting the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) goal of halving snakebite deaths and disability worldwide by 2030.
According to statics Snakebite envenoming kills between 81,000 and 138,000 people annually and a further 400,000 surviving victims are left with permanent physical disabilities and disfigurements.One-third of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa with majority individuals affected by snakebite often residing in disadvantaged rural communities across Africa..
The newly launched ASA members are drawn from LSTM, KIPRE, University of Global Health Equity (UGHE), Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR), Eswatini Antivenom Foundation (EAF) and Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) with funding provided by the Wellcome Trust.
ASA will to promote research on snakebite envenoming via open grants to address the challenge in the barriers to tackling the burden of snakebite in sub-Saharan Africa, including limited funds and lack of relevant data.WHO has classified snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease due to the lack of global resources dedicated to tackling it including the need for high quality research.
