Scientists researching deadly snakebites make major discovery: 'It is hoped that this trial marks the beginning of an era'
But climate shifts are also increasing the likelihood of snakebites, which can be deadly and pose a new public health challenge.
Fortunately, researchers are working on solutions to improve snakebite treatments and reduce these risks.
As Science News reported, a team of researchers associated with programs in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Kenya tested a drug commonly used for heavy-metal poisoning to treat venomous snakebites.
They found that unithiol can block venom proteins from many dangerous snakes. The researchers conducted a Phase I clinical trial to see how various dosages affected people. They screened 175 subjects in the study and gave unithiol to 64 of them.
As they reported in eBioMedicine, they found unithiol effective for snakebites and did not uncover any safety issues.
Unithiol works by blocking proteins to prevent tissue damage and death. It has advantages over antivenom treatments because those medications are expensive, not readily available, and can cause severe allergic reactions.
This new "speedy treatment" for snakebites is promising because it could improve health and safety in vulnerable communities, especially in low-income regions and remote places.
"Unithiol is affordable, stable at room temperature, and has the potential to be given orally in remote rural clinics," the researchers wrote.
With climate shifts contributing to 20,000 snakebites and 4,000 related deaths every year in Kenya, treatments such as this keep people safe. Unithiol could become a viable alternative to antivenom treatments in the future or an initial treatment to keep a patient stable until they can travel from a remote area to a hospital.
Do you worry about getting diseases from bug bites?
Absolutely
Only when I'm camping or hiking
Not really
Never
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
The researchers noted the need to determine the precise dosage to treat snakebites in humans. They established a three-dose regimen for testing in future trials.
"Future trials should be based in low-middle income settings, where the greatest burden of snakebite exists," the researchers wrote. "... It is hoped that this trial marks the beginning of an era of modernised therapeutics in the field of snakebite, which will be essential to achieving the World Health Organization target of reducing snakebite associated morbidity and mortality by 50%."
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
8 hours ago
- Forbes
Forget Screen Time, This Is The True Threat To Gen Alpha
CEOs and founders are finally beginning to pay attention to the mobility-gap in our youth. While all eyes are on mobile phones as the greatest threat to our youth's wellbeing, a bigger threat to childhood might be unfolding just beyond the glow of those screens. Across the globe, we're raising a generation that is less physically active, less mobile, and less confident in their bodies than ever before. In the United States, only 20-28% of kids between ages 6 and 17 meet the CDC's recommendation of 60 minutes of daily physical activity. Globally, the situation is even more dire, with over 80% of adolescents not getting enough exercise, according to the World Health Organization. Despite decades of awareness campaigns, public investment, and school initiatives, the needle has barely moved. The consequences ripple out beyond rising obesity or declining cardiovascular health. Lower levels of childhood movement are linked to decreased executive function, poorer mental health, reduced school performance, and higher rates of social isolation. In short, we're quietly undermining an entire generation that will soon find itself struggling not only with their physical well-being, but with the confidence and competence that comes from mastering their own bodies, all in the era of AI that is already making it more difficult for humans to compete. This is why we need to look beyond our concerns over the screen, and examine how we can push and pull our youth to action again. And in this endeavor, companies and their leadership have much more work to do than you might initially think. We Need to Pull Kids Toward Movement, Not Push Them Away From Screens If we want to raise kids who move, we need to build environments that make movement feel rewarding, natural, and most of all, fun. It is not enough to tell children to go outside or scold them for spending too much time online. The same goes for simply taking away their cellphones, even if Jonathan Haidt has made a wonderful case for doing so. Instead, we need to offer meaningful incentives that meet them, and move them, where they are. That's the idea behind WeWard, a free mobile app that turns walking into a rewarding experience. 'When we gamify movement, teenagers suddenly care,' says Yves Benchimol, WeWard's founder and CEO in an interview. 'Across our user base, daily movement jumps by 24 percent once rewards kick in.' Clearly the carrot approach is working, given how one of WeWard's fastest-growing user segments has been among teens and young adults who never saw themselves as 'active.' According to Benchimol, 'The magic doesn't come from collecting points or the gamification alone. The social proof of it all is incredibly important as well. When you're competing with your friends and building healthier habits through community, that's a powerful shift in mindset.' He's particularly passionate about closing mobility equity gaps with methods that pull, instead of push, and he also reminds us of the importance of access to options to move. 'There's a turbo fitness culture these days that promotes rigid diets and expensive workout routines that not everyone can afford,' Benchimol says. 'A healthy lifestyle is something that everyone should have access to in a way that isn't intimidating or extreme. That's why we chose to focus on walking—it's a simple but powerful movement that's incredibly overlooked. Educating the youth on these benefits will be key to wellness reform' What Benchimol is highlighting ties to a growing trend where treating physical activity not as a personal virtue, but as a public good that needs private solutions and education to play a larger role. If we want more movement, we need to design for it on all sides of the economy. That includes smart incentives, but also the resources and tools to make movement easy. Make Mobility Accessible, And The Rest Takes Care of Itself Kids find the joy in mobility early, if only we allow it. For many kids, a love of motion starts the moment they ride their first bike. But fewer and fewer are reaching that milestone, in large part given that we simply don't have access to spaces, or equipment to move the way previous generations did. Perhaps the most striking statistic comes from something as simple as riding a bike. According to Strider Bikes founder Ryan McFarland during our interview, 'Only about a quarter of kids in the U.S. can ride a bike by the time they're six. We used to take it for granted. Now, it's the exception.' Seeing these statistics play out firsthand is part of the reason McFarland created the Strider balance bike to begin with. After watching his own son struggle on traditional learn-to-ride toys that were too cumbersome and complicated, he crafted his own pedal-less starter bike designed to teach balance and confidence before introducing propulsion. 'Balance first, propulsion later. The moment a toddler glides, you've banked a lifetime of confidence,' McFarland says. Recognizing the challenge accessibility poses, McFarland has pushed the company to do more than simply build bikes. The Strider Education Foundation helped launch and now supports All Kids Bike, a nonprofit initiative that puts balance bikes directly into public school kindergarten PE classes. Their turnkey program includes bikes, helmets, curriculum, and teacher training, all funded by donors. 'With over 1,600 active programs in all 50 states, we're reaching 160,000 five-year-olds every year,' says Lisa Weyer, executive director of All Kids Bike. 'And because the equipment lasts up to a decade, we are teaching over 1.6 million kids how to ride.' The appeal to schools is clear: the program fits seamlessly into existing curriculum, doesn't require families to buy their own equipment, and provides measurable outcomes. 'We treat bikes the way we treat books or microscopes,' Weyer explains. 'Bikes shouldn't feel like luxury items. They're essential learning tools and the pathway to a lifetime of mobility.' Both Weyer and McFarland see mobility as a justice issue. 'You don't get to build confidence if you never get the chance to try,' says McFarland. 'That's why we focus on public schools, especially in communities where bikes might be out of reach.' When we break down the barriers of accessibility by removing cost barriers, creating access, and integrating movement into daily routines, kids naturally take to it in ways that show the issue is not due to a lack of interest in movement. Quite the contrary. However, there's another piece of the puzzle: adults modeling the behavior they wan't to see in the youth. Don't Forget Grown-ups Need Play, Too Those who have been around kids know that they model what we do, not what we say. If kids are watching us, and they always are, then they need to see adults enjoying movement, not avoiding it. Given the only race most kids see their parents run is of the rat variety, we have ourselves to blame for much of the lack of movement we see in our progeny. Bringing back movement that is fun to our own lives is an essential starting point that we can't shut our eyes from. And that's where companies like Onewheel come in. 'The idea for Onewheel was inspired by the desire to recreate the feeling of freedom and flow that I first fell in love with growing up snowboarding in the Canadian Rockies,' says Kyle Doerksen, founder of Onewheel, a self-balancing electric board that feels like surfing on land. 'It was never meant to be a toy, but a vehicle that could create a whole new category of sport, and turn the everyday school or coffee run into a micro-adventure.' What began as a Kickstarter project in 2014 has grown into a global community with riders in 139 countries around the world and an active scene of meetups, group rides, and competitions. 'People love to ride together, and we see a lot of parents and older kids who ride together too,' Doerksen adds. 'There's this deep nostalgia for the kind of play we had as kids, exploration, speed, freedom, that I think sometimes we as adults forgot was possible.' The company's latest board is itself a nostalgic nod to the past, the Onewheel XR Classic, a reimagined version of its best-selling board, the discontinued Onewheel XR. Doerksen argues that micromobility is at its core a cultural shift. 'When parents ride to the park instead of driving, when they try and fail and laugh and try again, kids notice. Adults need recess, too.' By making movement aspirational for grown-ups, Onewheel has created a feedback loop: adults who play raise kids who move. And when that loop becomes normal, the next generation doesn't need to be coaxed off the couch. We can't lecture our way out of the youth mobility crisis. What we can do is make moving irresistible. That means more carrots, rewards, recognition, community, and fewer sticks. It means embedding equipment and encouragement where kids already are: schools, parks, city blocks. It means showing them that movement is normal, joyful, and for everyone. Above all, it means treating mobility not as a side effect of good parenting or elite schooling, but as a basic ingredient in a thriving childhood. The bodies of the next generation are already telling us what they need. Our job is to listen, and get them moving.
9 hours ago
David Nabarro, British physician who led UN response to Ebola and COVID-19, dies
GENEVA -- Dr. David Nabarro, a British physician who led the U.N. response to some of the biggest health crises in recent years, including bird flu, Ebola and the coronavirus pandemic, has died. He was 75. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, confirmed Nabarro's death on social media platform X. 'David was a great champion of global health and health equity, and a wise, generous mentor to countless individuals,' Tedros wrote Saturday. 'His work touched and impacted so many lives across the world.' King Charles III knighted Nabarro in 2023 for his contributions to global health after he served as one of six special envoys to the WHO on COVID-19. He won the 2018 World Food Prize for his work on health and hunger issues. He also was a candidate for the top job at the WHO in 2017 but lost out to Tedros in the final round of voting. Nabarro left the U.N. later that year. In 2003, Nabarro survived a bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people, including the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time, and wounded dozens more. Nabarro, then one of the WHO's senior directors, was in a meeting when 'suddenly there was this extraordinary thud," he told reporters during an emotional news conference days later in Geneva, still carrying his blood-spattered notebook. 'We found some first aid kits, got bandages and turned people onto their sides. We were working like in a cloud, in this fog of moaning and crying,' he recalled. The 4SD Foundation, a social enterprise in Switzerland where Nabarro served as strategic director, said he died Friday in a 'sudden passing.' 'David's generosity and unwavering commitment to improve the lives of others will be sorely missed,' it said. Thuy Maryen, Nabarro's longtime friend and the foundation's former communications director, said he was 75 and died at his home in Ferney-Voltaire, France, a suburb of Geneva. The foundation is focused on mentoring the next generation of leaders in global sustainable development.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
China announces child subsidy programme as births hit historic lows
Long seen in the West as a byword for the Chinese Communist Party's heavy-handedness, the one-child policy became a trope for Chinese authoritarianism. While the policy was officially scrapped in 2015 after years of looser enforcement, China now faces unprecedentedly low birth rates — and has announced it will begin offering childcare subsidies for the first, second and third child up to the age of three, starting this year. Under the plan, families will receive what the government calls a 'fertility bonus' of 3,600 yuan or just over €430 per child until the age of three. While the national government will pay this 'base' amount, local authorities are free to top it up depending on their own resources. The CCP said the nationwide rollout of cash subsidies will help ease the pressure of childcare expenses and will help to prevent a further decline in the fertility rate. Crucially, the subsidies will be tax-exempt and excluded from calculations of household or individual income, ensuring they do not affect eligibility for minimum living allowances or extreme poverty assistance. Related China officially ends one-child policy from January 1 Nappies up, condoms down... end to China's one-child policy hits shares Why now? In 2024, China's total fertility (TFR) rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime according to current patterns — was around 1.15 children per woman. That's among the world's lowest and below the so-called 'replacement level' of 2.1, meaning the baseline for the population size to stay the same. Demographers use these rates to measure whether a population is shrinking, growing or staying the same. The goal of the new policy would not be to expand the population, but to keep it at a relatively similar size without seeing it skew too heavily towards an ageing population. The latter is a problem faced by many European economies. According to the World Health Organization, by 2040, around 28% of China's population will be over the age of 60, threatening to disrupt what used to be a growing labour force and competitive wages. This also skews the dependency ratio, with funds in the economy going to supporting elderly relatives, increased healthcare costs and pensions. In 2022, China's population shrank for the first time since 1961, marking a yearly drop of 850,000 people as deaths outnumbered births. In 2023, the worst year on record, the population fell by approximately 2.08 million, and the decline continued in 2024 — improving only slightly — as it fell by 1.39mn. Chinese growth miracle is reversed In 1978, China went through political and economic reforms, including opening up parts of its economy to combat rural poverty and absorbing hundreds of millions of workers into its labour force. It is widely considered one of the fastest economic transformations in history, with China becoming the biggest net exporter in the world and its economy growing an average of about 9.5% per year until 2018. Of course, the economic clout came with political and diplomatic power. Now, the population decline could lead to China falling on the wrong side of the demographic dividend as its pool of available labour shrinks. Ultra-low fertility economies China is not the only Asian country to suffer from this problem and its effects on the economy. Several Asian countries are now considered ultra-low fertility economies, where population decline has become very steep and hard to reverse — even with pro-natalist policies like the child subsidy. A mix of economic, cultural and demographic dynamics may reinforce a cycle of fewer births in these countries. Economically, this erodes the very demographic dividend that once fuelled the explosive growth of East Asia's richest countries. Sign in to access your portfolio
