. Charity Doctors Without Borders warns of a crisis in snake bite treatment

. Supplies of the anti-venom medicine Fav-Afrique will run out in June

. Manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur stopped producing the medicine last year 

. Some 5m people suffer a snake bite every year, and 100,000 die as a result

 

Tens of thousands of people's lives could be in danger as the world will run out of one of the most effective treatments for snakebites next year, a leading medical charity has warned.  Doctors Without Borders, which issued the stark warning, said people in developing countries are mostly at risk.

 

The charity says existing stockpiles of the anti-venom medicine Fav-Afrique, produced by pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, will expire in June next year. The company stopped producing the anti-venom last year and has since started using the same technology to make a rabies treatment instead.

 

About five million people are bitten by snakes every year, which leads to 100,000 deaths and several hundred thousand others who suffer amputations or other disabilities.  When it is available, the anti-venom treatment costs $250 (£162.24) to $500 (£324.68). In poor countries, the drugs are bought and supplied by donors and aid groups.

 

'We are now facing a real crisis,' Dr Gabriel Alcoba, Doctors Without Borders' snakebite adviser, said in a statement.

 

The aid group, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières‎ (MSF), said there would likely be no alternative to replace the Sanofi Pasteur snakebite treatment for at least two years.

 

A spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur said the company was driven out of the market by competitors selling cheaper products, and it announced in 2010 it would stop making the anti-venom. But the cheaper dr

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