Market research on a portable snake venom detection kit.

Abstract

Despite the significant number of snake bite incidences, much improvement in the management of snake bite is needed. It is estimated that annually, there are around 5.5 million snake bite incidences globally, with South Asia and Southeast Asia making up more than 50% of these incidences. Unfortunately, the majority of the snake bitten victims did not seek help from hospitals. Even for those who did, there were a worrisome number of cases where proper administration of antivenin was being delayed, withheld or insufficiently given due to mistakes or delays in diagnosis. These hindered the recovery of patients and resulted in wastage of antivenin. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a snake venom detection kit specifically catered for South and Southeast Asian regions. The only commercially available diagnostic kit is from Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) and it uses the Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. However, it has disadvantages like the inability to fully quantify venom levels and time consuming test procedures which requires some level of expertise. As such, a diagnostic kit using the Mach Zender Interferometry (MZI) is being proposed for commercialization, to aid in the improvement of the current status of snake bite management.