HOW ANTI-VENOM IS OBTAINED

Venom is milked from snakes, then injected in horses to produce antibodies inside the horses' bodies. This is then collected from their blood and purified, with an end product that helps neutralize the affect of the venom. All the snakes brought to the institute's laboratory are kept for 60 days, then returned to the forest to avoid disturbing their ecosystem. At the institute, snakes are milked for venom once every 15 days to avoid stressing them. Russell’s vipers are known to give birth to a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 40 in a litter. They are terrestrial in nature and nocturnal foragers and found largely in South Asia. Mating happens at the beginning of the year, and the snakes give birth from May to November and the maximum births take place in June and July.