Doctors save bitten snake breeder

Krnov, North Moravia, Sept 3 (CTK) - The health condition of a 45-year-old Czech snake keeper who was bitten by a cobra on Saturday has improved now after a series of unfortunate accidents endangering his life, spokeswoman for the Krnov hospital where the man is staying told CTK yesterday.

Doctors have administered the relevant antibody that was hastily imported from Germany.

The patient's condition has improved and it is stable now. The man has been transferred from the anaesthesiology and resuscitation ward (ARO) to a standard hospital room. He speaks to doctors and has received the first visitor, his girl-friend, the spokeswoman, Eva Kijonkova, said.

A Monocled Cobra (Naja kaouthia) bit the man, a reptile fan from north Moravia, when he was feeding it on Saturday morning. His relative called in an ambulance. Then he wanted to drive the patient to meet the ambulance halfway. However, their car had an accident in which fortunately no one was injured.

The ambulance took over the patient and rushed him to the ARO, where, however, a problem arose as a suitable antibody was unavailable not only in the Krnov hospital but anywhere in the Czech Republic.

A private ambulance set out from Prague for Munich to fetch the antibody from the local Toxicology centre.

"If a man is bitten by a monocled cobra, the antibody should be administered within 24 hours. The necessary six doses of it arrived in Krnov on Saturday after 22:00. We started applying it immediately," Kijonkova said.

The poison of the monocled cobra, a species common in southeast Asia, is strongly neurotoxic. It hits the heart, muscles and the nervous system, the bitten person often dies of suffocation.

The Monocled Cobra is somewhat shorter than the best-known Forest Cobra. It is lighter, up to 1.3 metres long and it has a single eye-shaped spot on its cape.

It's nature is considered moderate, compared with the Forest Cobra's.