NEWINDPRESS (Chennai, India) 18 May 05 Lethality of another snake species identified
Kochi: A breakthrough discovery with implications on the treatment of snakebite has been made with the identification of the lethality of a snake everyone thought is harmless.
Identified as the hump-nosed pitviper - churutta in local language - the snake, experts say, does cause life-threatening symptoms and fatalities.
Contrary to popular belief that it is not as lethal as its other viper brethren, the bite of a hump-nosed pitviper too can eliminate clotting factors in the blood and cause acute renal failure.
The discovery has been made by Dr Joseph K.Joseph, Head of the Department of Medicine and Nephrology at Little Flower Hospital in Angamaly, and Ian D.Simpson, a herpetologist and member of the WHO Snakebite Treatment Group.
The hump-nosed pitviper is a small, brown snake with lighter/darker brown markings. It is arboreal and terrestrial and inhabits deciduous and secondary forest.
It often rests during the day in leaf litter or in bushes and is naturally aggressive. It is found throughout the Western Ghats, including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa and probably Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
‘‘There is currently no effective anti-venom against this species. The normal polyvalent anti-venom is completely ineffective and the manufacturers will have to develop a new anti-venom to combat the problem,’’ Ian Simpson told this website’s newspaper.
The discovery, he said, changed a belief that had existed for over 100 years that there are only four deadly snakes in India.
‘‘But now we know that it’s not just the so-called ‘big four’ comprising cobra, krait, russells viper and saw-scaled viper. The king cobra is known to possess a lethal venom but it is rarely encountered and fatalities are non-existent. The other venomous snakes, such as the pitviper family were all regarded as non-lethal,’’ Simpson said.
However, studies done at the Little Flower Hospital’s museum of dead snakes brought out some startling facts.
‘‘Dead snakes brought with the patient were cross-referenced to the victim if possible. A detailed review of each of the snakes in this museum and others succeeded in establishing that the hump-nosed pitviper was being regularly mis-identified as the saw-scaled viper and, therefore, the true culprit was being concealed,’’ Simpson said.
Lethality of another snake species identified