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Thomas Nicolon

A young snakebite victim is treated at a rural clinic in Guinea. In agricultural areas where infrastructure is poor, getting a victim to a specialised medical facility such as this can be difficult – as can storing anti-venom, most of which requires refrigeration. Most snakebite victims are poor agricultural workers working in remote areas.

Many bites are lower leg, caused when a bare or lightly-clad foot steps on a camouflaged snake in long grass or agricultural pasture.

Villagers in Guinea wait outside a rural snakebite clinic. The aim of Centivax research is to produce a broad-spectrum anti-venom which can be stored easily – and therefore deployed in rural areas with sketchy infrastructure, which see the majority of snakebite victims.

Flicking its tongue, a bush viper sniffs its surroundings. Venomous snakes kill some 30,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa each year, but many deaths go unrecorded. The real number may be double that. (From “Snakebites kill tens of thousands of Africans a year,” May 2020.)

Agile and arboreal, the eastern green mamba—one of four deadly African mamba species—lives in the coastal region of southern East Africa. Mambas avoid humans as much as possible, but their strikes release a neurotoxic venom that acts quickly, inducing respiratory failure and eventually death by asphyxia.

The rhinoceros viper, at home in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, takes its name from the enlarged scales on its snout, which resemble horns. These snakes are slow-moving, nocturnal, and difficult to spot amid leaf litter.

A well-camouflaged Gaboon viper coils on the forest floor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. An ambush predator, this snake can remain motionless for hours, potentially striking anything that steps on it. The Gaboon viper’s venom interferes with blood coagulation and breaks down tissues. Victims who live may require an amputation.

A forest cobra inflates its hood, a defensive posture, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Africa is home to about 20 species of cobras, large snakes that adapt well to habitats disturbed by humans, including fruit plantations and suburban neighbourhoods. Cobra venom blocks nerve signals and causes death by respiratory arrest.

A puff adder, which inflates its body and hisses to warn potential aggressors, basks on warm rocks in western Guinea. Ranging widely through Africa, this species ranks among the continent’s top five deadliest snakes—its bite ravages living tissue.

Cellou shows his swollen hand 30 minutes after he was bitten by a puff adder. Doctors use a Sharpie to mark the progression of swelling and pain. Cellou was injected with six vials of Inoserp-Pan Africa antivenom. He refused painkillers to “better understand what patients feel.”