Human–animal conflicts: socio-philosophical aspects (on the example of the problem of Ophidism).

Kurbanov Artemiy ORCID: 0000-0002-1155-2586 PhD in Politics Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy of Education, Faculty of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University 119234, Russia, Moskva, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, d. 27, k.4, kab. E-311 ark112@yandex.ru

Conflicts between humans and representatives of other biological species are one of the most common types of contacts, a special case of interaction along the line of "society – nature" and reflect the uniqueness of the natural and then – social history of Homo sapiens. In modern literature, conflict contacts include those contacts that result in or may result in injuries or death of their participants on both sides, as well as damage or destruction of their habitat ^[1]. In the history of Modern civilization, associated with the large-scale expansion of man during the formation of the colonial political and economic model, and until recently, such conflicts were considered as natural and necessary to achieve the dominant position of man in nature. This is reflected in the system of nominations widely used in scientific and popular science literature, used to designate individual species or groups of animal species in terms of their potential or real role in such interactions - useful, neutral and harmful ^[2]. The latter included, first of all, predatory representatives of megafauna, whose diet could include humans or domesticated animals, most rodents that pose a threat to crops, and venomous snakes.

The latter were historically perceived as direct enemies of man, which was directly reflected in the cultural space and received multiple codification in a stable system of negative images and meanings characteristic of the European civilizational space ^{[3, 4]}. The potential result of a human collision with a venomous snake – the defeat of his body as a result of the penetration of venom into the blood during the bite, which could lead to death or a prolonged disruption of normal life – brought the private situation of contact between two representatives of different biological species into the social plane, since the victim needed help, which could only be provided by the community, which It brought to life a specific set of social practices that transformed with the development of society and received institutional consolidation ^{[5, 6]}. Health experts pay attention to the fact that in the modern world, in many countries for which the problem of venomous snake bites (ophidism) retains its significance, in one social space can coexist as modern institutions associated with the provision of specialized assistance, as well as traditional, archaic practices, and appropriate role models (quackery) ^[7]. In some cases, the success of the entire system of assistance in this situation depends, among other things, on how well representatives of medical structures and government bodies have established contact with local communities and their informal leaders, whose authority can become both a resource for supporting official medicine and working against it, forcing victims to turn to the healthcare system only as a last resort ^{[8, 9]}. On the other hand, the frequency of conflict situations and the severity of their possible consequences force the search for systemic solutions that contribute to the emergence of special organizational structures associated with the study of "non-human agents" and the development of etiotropic drugs used in the specific therapy of victims ^[10]. In this context, both the scale of the phenomenon itself and its awareness by decision makers (the political component), as well as the scientific potential and economic opportunities of a particular country or region, are of significant importance.

In the modern world, a very paradoxical situation has developed with venomous snake bites as a systemic challenge to healthcare. The obvious successes achieved in the second half of the twentieth century thanks to scientific and technological progress and the introduction into widespread production of the main means of etiotropic therapy - specific immunoglobulins (antivenoms), thanks to which it was possible to radically influence the situation in the most "problematic" regions – Latin America, Africa, Central and Southeast Asia, as well as North America. America and Australia – led to the fact that the very threat to public health associated with conflicts along the line of "man-poisonous snakes" ceased to be considered as relevant ^{[5, 11]}. This point of view was reflected in the position of key actors, such as the World Health Organization and national governments, and obviously affected the budgeting of funds related to the purchase of necessary drugs and the training of specialists in this field ^[12]. This has affected the economic strategies of pharmaceutical companies, for which the production of antivenoms, in itself quite expensive, taking into account the complex cycle, including the production of poison, immunization of donor animals, blood plasma sampling, extraction of necessary antibodies from blood plasma, has ceased to be profitable ^[13]. Finally, the traditional rhetoric associated with the problematization of ophidism and giving an existential shade to the corresponding class of contacts between humans and other biological species is being transformed in the direction of the archaization of the social meaning of this phenomenon, which is sinking deeper into the "information shadow", being pushed out of the agenda – both in the media and in scientific literature.

At the same time, the frequency of contacts between humans and venomous snakes has not decreased, which was due to several factors – a steady increase in the world's population during the XX – beginning of the XXI century, accelerated development of new territories necessary for human habitation and agricultural activities, the preservation of manual labor in the agricultural sector in the countries of Southeast Asia, Africa and – partly – Latin America, climate changes, the coincidence of labor cycles in the agricultural sector and the cycles of activity of poisonous snakes (for example, in Africa and Southeast Asia) ^[14]. However, due to a number of reasons, in particular, the imperfection of mechanisms for collecting and processing information about such incidents, as well as social inertia caused by public health achievements in the previous period, the problematic nature of ophidism was no longer obvious to the scientific community and national governments. The consequence of this was the increase in negative phenomena in public health at the end of the XX – beginning of the XXI century, which received the generalized name "snakebite crisis" ("snakebite crisis"), common to which are the following characteristics:

• · resource deficit in healthcare systems, which has a complex character, the key component of which is the shortage or complete absence of antivenoms (anti-snake serum preparations)
• · curtailment or absence of scientific and production structures related to the production of antivenoms focused on this country (region);
• · inability to fill the existing deficit in a short time (within a year or several years):
• · the renaissance of archaic snake bite treatment practices in local communities, caused by distrust of official medicine and/or its inaccessibility to members of these communities due to high cost, transport costs, underdeveloped infrastructure ^{[15, 16, 17]}.

The consequence of awareness of the current situation is an increase in the number of alarmist publications in the scientific literature, and then in the wide information space, and the revival of the old rhetoric that recognized the threat of ophidism as one of the important challenges of public health ^[18]. At the same time, the cardinal revision of the value framework of human-nature interaction in the second half - the end of the twentieth century and the rejection of the idea of human dominance as a self-evident and imperative thesis, as well as the approval of the concept of biodiversity conservation as a key component of sustainable development, led to a revision of the previous discourse related to the conflict "man-poisonous snakes", as well as the rejection of the anthropocentric division of biological species into "useful" and "harmful" ^[19]. The interpretation of the causes of the conflict itself and the behavior of its participants has changed, as well as the logic of constructing the agency of the non-human side of the conflict, which was previously based on the idea that it had intentions hostile to man ^[20]. The current discourse related to this conflict is based on an understanding of its accidental nature, forced nature, the absence (in the "normal" version of the behavior of its participants) of intentions for a collision and the search for ways and means to prevent it before and without the onset of negative consequences for each of the parties ^[21]. In this context, the institutionalization of initiative groups is characteristic, whose activities are related to the conduct of information work aimed at destroying previous stereotypes regarding snakes in general and venomous snakes in particular, as well as the relocation (relocation) of snakes found within human habitation, and such groups exist, including in those countries where the risk of corresponding conflicts is maximal (including India, Sri Lanka, South Africa) ^{[22, 23]}. Of course, this does not exclude the typical behavior of most people when meeting a snake, aimed at its destruction, however, the very existence of such social formations and the popularization of their active members can be considered as a manifestation of a new biocentric paradigm (as a comparison, we can cite an alternative situation of the late XIX – early XX century, when in Europe and the USA similar snake hunters were popular – people who made killing them their profession; in actual reality, this seems impossible).

Thus, the situation of the global "snakebite crisis", which has now been recognized at the level of the World Health Organization, is characterized by a pronounced absence of a subject to blame for it – both among human and non-human participants. Pharmaceutical corporations are recognized as indirect culprits of the crisis, in particular, in the situation in sub-Saharan Africa, the role of Sanofi Pasteur, which in 2010 completely curtailed the production of Fav-Afique, a key anti-venom for this region, effective against the poisons of ten species of snakes that are of the greatest importance from the point of view of public health ^[24]. However, upon careful analysis, it becomes obvious that the company announced its intention to leave this market in advance, taking into account the volume of doses of the drug already delivered to end users and the duration of their shelf life. The reasons for this decision were precisely the insufficient demand from the national governments that were the customers of Fav-Afique ^[25]. The actual crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, associated with the destruction of the modern model of snake bite care and the renaissance of archaic practices based on distrust of official medicine, was the result of aggressive penetration into the local market of private companies, primarily Indian, offering low-quality drugs produced on the basis of Indian snake venoms and ineffective against African bites snakes ^[26]. In this regard, the general tone in publications devoted to the current crisis is associated with the recognition of the responsibility of most social actors associated with public health, and the absence of anyone's ill will that led to such a development of events.

In the second half of the 2010s, thanks to the efforts of a number of individual and collective actors - social activists, scientists, research and production organizations like the Clodomiro Picado Institute, non–governmental humanitarian organizations (Doctors Without Borders) - the scale of the current crisis received official recognition from the World Health Organization ^[27]. According to modern estimates, as a result of conflicts between humans and venomous snakes, up to 3 million people receive bites accompanied by intoxication every year, of which about 180 thousand die, and over 400 thousand receive long-term health disorders, including disability due to the loss of a limb. At the same time, therapy based on the use of antivenoms remains the main treatment scheme for the effects of intoxication with snake venom, but less than half of the required number of doses of antivenoms are produced in the world today, effective against 57% of snakes of medical importance ^[28]. In June 2017, the World Health Organization added the problem of snakebites to the list of "forgotten tropical diseases", thereby recognizing its significance on a global scale and giving it a clear status within global health ^[29]. In May 2018, within the framework of the 71st session of the World Health Assembly, WHO specifically addressed this problem, noting that until now, in most cases, it has remained without proper attention from the world health community. In May 2019, WHO officially adopted a Strategy to combat the consequences of snake Bites, the main goal of which is to reduce mortality and disability from them by 50% by 2030 ^[30].

However, most of the efforts and achievements described above were offset overnight by the drastic changes in the global health agenda due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020-2021, global health efforts, including the production of blood plasma-based products, turned out to be focused on countering the SARS-Cov–2 virus, which is why there are many other tasks related to achieving Sustainable Development Goal No. 3 from among those proclaimed by the United Nations - Ensuring a healthy lifestyle and promoting well-being for all in the world. at any age, they were outside the current priorities ^[31]. Overcoming the global snakebite crisis is one of them. Currently, the first estimates are being made of how much the pandemic has affected work in this area, but the deformation of the entire structure of global health in the context of a still incomplete pandemic is obvious, and the snakebite crisis may again go into the "information shadow", despite the fact that the real number of conflicts between humans and non-humans actors remained at the same level ^[32].