On February 19, 2008, the Director of Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC), Dr. Hsu-Sung Kuo signed a memorandum with Dr. Yuan-Kuang Guu, the President of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST), in Pingtung for a collaborative effort on antivenin production through the construction of a new horse farm. The signing ceremony was witnessed by the Minister of Health, Dr. Sheng-Mou Hou.
In subtropical area, snakes are frequently found in the mountains and forests. Every year, there are about one thousand snakebite cases occurred in Taiwan. As antivenin is the only treatment for the snake-bitten persons, the government of Taiwan has been producing antivenin for over 60 years. Usually, in the antivenin production process, plasma used to produce the final product is obtained from local snake toxin immunized horses.
However, due to the lack of a professional horse farm to keep horses for the purpose of antivenin production in Taiwan, a new, well-designed horse farm is necessary for stabilizing the supply of antivenin and improving the quality of the antivenin production. The NPUST located in the southern part of Taiwan has the nation’s largest and most elegant campus. In addition, the school is equipped with excellent resources, including the Department of Life Sciences, the Department of Veterinarian Medicine, and the Department of Animal Sciences, which could support all the items of the collaboration such as the construction of a new, well-designed horse farm, improving immunization technique, taking care of immunized horses, breeding for horses with high antibody titer, and training of technicians. Since the antivenin production capacity and ability will be raised, the collaborative effort would not merely result in meeting the local demand for antivenin, but also helping other countries in need of antivenin.