科学家开发通用抗毒剂对付毒蛇（在线收听）

科学家开发通用抗毒剂对付毒蛇

Thousands of people in sub-Saharan Africa die or are disabled each year due to poisonous snake bites. Scientists in Britain are working to develop a serum that will counteract the venom from all sub-Saharan poisonous snake bites.

The Puff adder is only one of many venomous snakes native to sub-Saharan Africa.

鼓腹毒蛇是原产于撒哈拉南部非洲的众多毒蛇之一。

Dr. Robert Harrison, of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, says every year, puff adders and the other snakes kill about 32,000 people.

利物浦热带医学院的罗伯特·哈里森博士说，鼓腹毒蛇和其他毒蛇每年杀死大约3.2万人。

“It's not only that; other people who survive the bite - about 100,000 of them - are living with severe disabled limbs or legs, just really very disabling conditions,” he said.

“不仅如此，其他被蛇咬但没有死掉的人有大约10万，他们肢体严重残疾，身体严重伤残。”

The current method of producing anti-venom - starting with the venom itself - is time-consuming and costly, and the serum must be refrigerated. Victims have to be treated multiple times and there are possible side-effects. With the price of about $140 per single dose, the full treatment may cost more than $500, which makes it unaffordable for most rural Africans.

目前治疗抗毒剂的方法一开始要使用到毒液，这种方法耗时且成本高，而且血清必须进行冷藏。受害者必须接受多次治疗，而且还可能有副作用。每剂药的价格大约140美元，全部治疗需要500多美元，这对大多数非洲农村人来说难以承受。

In addition, because of the way they're produced, current serums counteract poison from only one species, or a few related ones, so doctors must determine what snake bit the victim.

另外，由于抗毒剂生产方法所限，目前的血清只对一种或少数几种相关蛇毒有效，所以医生必须确定患者是被哪种蛇咬伤的。

The anti-venom developed by scientists at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine specifically for Nigeria, proved to be cheap, safe and effective.

利物浦热带医学院科学家研发的抗毒剂是专为尼日利亚研制的，已被证明廉价、安全且有效。

Harrison says his team is using it as a basis for developing universal anti-venom applicable to all venomous snakes in sub-Saharan Africa.

哈里森说他的团队使用这种抗毒剂作为开发能对付撒哈拉南部非洲各种毒蛇的通用抗毒剂的基础。

“We're going to do that by identifying the proteins that are unique to all the other species," he said. "And taking these unique proteins. i.e. different from the Source Scale Viper, the Puff Adder or the Spitting Cobra, and add that to the venoms of the original three.”

“我们准备识别出所有其他毒蛇独有的蛋白质，将这种与源规模毒蛇--鼓腹毒蛇或黑颈眼镜蛇--不同的蛋白质中加入最初的三种毒液。”

For this purpose the lab is regularly extracting venom from 450 snakes belonging to 21 of the most deadly species of sub-Saharan African snakes.

为此，该实验室定期从450种毒蛇中抽取毒液，这些毒蛇属于撒哈拉南部非洲21类最致命毒蛇品种。

Scientists say the universal anti-venom will be more affordable than current serums and will be effective much longer.

科学家称这种通用抗毒剂将比目前的血清更廉价，而且有效性更久。

Target date for the ultimate test - after a year of storage at room temperature - is set for July 2018.

经过一年的室温下储藏，最终测试的预定日期是2018年7月。