Venom expert features on ABC Pacific Beat about the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Snake Bite Partnership
Dr Andrew Watt (AVRU) discusses the partnership that is working to provide lifesaving supplies of anti-venom to villages across PNG.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is known to have one of the highest snakebite death rates in the world. Recently a nine-year-old girl was fatally bitten by a death adder in a remote area of PNG as she had no access to anti-venom.
Dr Andrew Watt who is Co-Head of the Australian Venom Research Unit (AVRU), in the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the School of Biomedical Sciences, is involved in the PNG Snake Bite Partnership – a partnership between PNG and Australia that donates and distributes anti-venoms to help save the lives of those affected by snakebite.
In the interveiw with ABC Pacific Beats, Andrew said it is very difficult to access remote areas in PNG as there are no roads and issues with refrigeration.
Anti-venoms are cold-chain medicines that require refrigeration to remain stable. So our team can only distribute to health centres that have an electricity supply or solar refrigerators.
The Partnership also train medical staff and work with logistic and flying doctor services who can air lift anti-venom medicines to remote areas to administer directly patients. Patient records show that the program has saved over 1,000 lives since it started six years ago.