According to Atsushi Sakai, chief researcher at the center, the snake’s hemolytic venom destroys cells in veins and causes continuous bleeding. Bite victims can die of acute kidney failure.

In the absence of renal failure, hyperkalemia in infectious diseases is usually associated with intravascular hemolysis or rhabdomyolysis. Common causes of hyperkalemia in the tropics are snake ...

Yet treatments have changed little in more than a century — most are based on antibodies in blood serum taken from horses and sheep immunized with snake venom. These antivenoms vary in safety ...