Part 1: Typical Amount of Antivenom Injected Without a Cobra Bite

On another trip to the jungle, you accidentally lost footing and fall back onto your backpack when you feel a painful prick on your back. You get up and notice that the antivenom had pierced through the backpack and was inadvertently administered to your bloodstream. In this case, we will explore the effects of an accidental injection of antivenom.

The equations we'll enter into Polymath are based on the additional information given in the problem statement and the equations derived earlier.

Polymath Code and Results

Our Polymath code for Case 5 can be downloaded using the link below.

Download the Code (.pol)

Let's take a look at the resulting plot of the fraction of sites versus time:

We see from the graph above that the fraction of free sites never drops below 0.5. This means that you will survive! Phew!

Notice that the twitch height remains close to one. Hence, if you give an appropriate amount of antivenom to a suspected victim, he would be safe even when not actually bit by a cobra.

Part 2: Typical Amount of Antivenom Injected Without a Cobra Bite

We will now see what happens when by accident too much of antivenom gets administered into a person (approximately 10 times of that given in case of a typical cobra bite) who has not been bit by a cobra.

The equations we'll enter into Polymath are based on the additional information given in the problem statement and the equations derived earlier.

Polymath Code and Results

Our Polymath code for Case 5 can be downloaded using the link below.

Download the Code (.pol)

Let's take a look at the resulting plot of the fraction of sites versus time:

We see from the graphs that the fraction of free sites drops down to around 0.10 at some point of time. Also the twitch height goes below the threshold value of 0.243. The minimum value of the twitch height is around 0.10. We see that if accidently too much antivenom is administered into a person who has not been bit by a cobra snake, then the person's life is at risk.