By Lusine Movsisyan, Armen Sargsyan

Blunt-nosed vipers kill up to ten people in Armenia every year. Armenian scientists have found a substance which reduces the effect of the poison and can save a person’s life, Armen Voskanyan, PhD, the head of a laboratory at the Institute of Physiology, told NEWS.am.

Over the recent years the laboratory has been studying the effects of viper’s poison and found that a substance, namely, taurine (a derivative of the amino acid, cysteine, obtained from the bile of animals; 2-aminoethanesulphonic acid. Formula: NH2CH2CH2SO3H), reduces the effect of viper’s poison. “We found that taurine has an antitoxic action against viper’s poison. However, it can only help if blunt-nosed vipers bite. It has no effect against cobra’s poison,” Voskanyan said.

Blunt-nosed viper’s poison destroys the blood-vascular system, which is the main cause of death. Taurine turns out to reduce this effect of the poison. One of the properties of the substance is angioprotection: after being injected, the substance reduces the poison’s adverse effect on the vascular system. The substance has been tested on animals, but Voskanyan is sure that taurine will have a positive effect on people. Due to its angioprotective action taurine has for many years been used for diabetes. Additional tests have shown that taurine does not in any way interact with anti-ophidic serum. So before the serum is injected taurine can be injected to reduce the effect of the poison. The Voskanyan-headed team has worked out a program of preparing a sufficient number of doses and distributing them among the risk groups (geologists, frontier guards, etc.) One dose is 5-7 grams of taurine and one bottle of distilled water. One dose is 3,000 AMD (about U.S. $9).

It should be noted that one dose of anti-ophidic serum exported from Uzbekistan costs 72,000 AMD. If bit by a large snake, a person needs up to five doses of the serum, which cost U.S. $1,000. Voskanyan said that such a high price of the serum cannot be explained, as one dose of the same serum exported from Uzbekistan by Russia costs 13,000 AMD (about 1,200 RUB). “The program requires 5m AMD. We submitted the program to the Armenian Government through the Academy of Sciences, but the Government failed to fund it,” Voskanyan said.