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The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation

Snakebite envenomation (SBE) is a high-priority, neglected tropical disease. This devastating occupational health hazard disproportionately affects rural farming communities in tropical countries. This is exacerbated by the distribution and densities of venomous snakes, incidence of encounters, and...

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Autores principales: Trim, Steven A., Trim, Carol M., Williams, Harry F., Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7762085/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33291263
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins12120774
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author Trim, Steven A.
Trim, Carol M.
Williams, Harry F.
Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
author_facet Trim, Steven A.
Trim, Carol M.
Williams, Harry F.
Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
author_sort Trim, Steven A.
collection PubMed
description Snakebite envenomation (SBE) is a high-priority, neglected tropical disease. This devastating occupational health hazard disproportionately affects rural farming communities in tropical countries. This is exacerbated by the distribution and densities of venomous snakes, incidence of encounters, and limited access to advanced healthcare, including antivenom. Before the development of antivenom, desperation and spiritual beliefs led patients to experiment with a wide range of traditional treatments. Many of these treatments still survive today, particularly in regions where access to healthcare is limited. Plants are a major source of bioactive molecules, including several lifesaving medications that are widely used to this day. However, much of the research into the use of traditional plant treatments for SBE are limited to preliminary analysis or have focused on techniques used to confirm antibody efficacy that are not suitable for non-antibody-containing treatments. Modern drugs are developed through a robust pharmaceutical drug discovery and development process, which applies as much to SBE as it does to any other disease. This review discusses specifically why research into ethnobotanical practices has failed to identify or develop a novel treatment for SBE and proposes specific approaches that should be considered in this area of research in the future.
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spelling pubmed-77620852020-12-26 The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation Trim, Steven A. Trim, Carol M. Williams, Harry F. Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel Toxins (Basel) Review Snakebite envenomation (SBE) is a high-priority, neglected tropical disease. This devastating occupational health hazard disproportionately affects rural farming communities in tropical countries. This is exacerbated by the distribution and densities of venomous snakes, incidence of encounters, and limited access to advanced healthcare, including antivenom. Before the development of antivenom, desperation and spiritual beliefs led patients to experiment with a wide range of traditional treatments. Many of these treatments still survive today, particularly in regions where access to healthcare is limited. Plants are a major source of bioactive molecules, including several lifesaving medications that are widely used to this day. However, much of the research into the use of traditional plant treatments for SBE are limited to preliminary analysis or have focused on techniques used to confirm antibody efficacy that are not suitable for non-antibody-containing treatments. Modern drugs are developed through a robust pharmaceutical drug discovery and development process, which applies as much to SBE as it does to any other disease. This review discusses specifically why research into ethnobotanical practices has failed to identify or develop a novel treatment for SBE and proposes specific approaches that should be considered in this area of research in the future. MDPI 2020-12-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7762085/ /pubmed/33291263 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins12120774 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Trim, Steven A.
Trim, Carol M.
Williams, Harry F.
Vaiyapuri, Sakthivel
The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation
title The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation
title_full The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation
title_fullStr The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation
title_full_unstemmed The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation
title_short The Failures of Ethnobotany and Phytomedicine in Delivering Novel Treatments for Snakebite Envenomation
title_sort failures of ethnobotany and phytomedicine in delivering novel treatments for snakebite envenomation
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7762085/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33291263
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins12120774
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