The casualty figures usually get more staggering during the heat when these cold-blooded reptiles are forced out of their hiding places in search
That period, usually between January and April, is incidentally the time farmers go to the fields to clear their farms, preparatory to the farming season.
During one of such peak snakebite periods last year, 250 victims died within three weeks in Plateau and Gombe states. “As at January, we had less than 200 vials left for the whole country. The report we get from the snakebite treatment centres is mind blogging, but there isn’t much we can do,’’ a hapless Mr Durfa told journalists in Jos recently.
He regretted that not much attention was being paid to victims of snakebites, and blamed that on a claim that the victims of snakebite were mostly the poor people. According to him, ASV comes in two forms – EchiTAB Plus ICP polyvalent, produced at the Instituto Clodomiro Picado, University of Costa Rica, which treats bites from all venomous snakes in Nigeria, and EchiTAB G, produced by Micropharm Ltd, United Kingdom, solely for carpet vipers, the commonest snakes in Nigeria.
Mr Durfa explained that local production of ASV would be “very easy” in Nigeria because the consultants had expressed their readiness to transfer the technology to the country. Mr Durfa further explained that EchiTAB ASV, whose name is sourced from Echis ocellatus – the biological name for carpet viper – with TAB referring to Therapeutic Anti-Bodies, had three variants including EchiTAB G for carpet vipers responsible for 97 per cent cases of snake bites in Nigeria, and EchiTAB Plus for carpet viper, Puff Adder and Black Cobra venom.
Mr Durfa suggested that the federal government could establish a factory to manufacture the drug using a Public-Private- Partnership , arrangement. “The only time we can have enough ASV to meet our rising demand is when we produce it locally. That is the only time we can determine our fate. Abubakar Bala, the Snakebite Treatment Officer at the Kaltungo General Hospital, Gombe, equally presented a gory picture of the helpless situation and urged the federal government to take urgent measures to begin the local production of the ASV.
“The other option is to have a reliable supply channel, with government subsidising the cost to avoid a major crisis like the types we suffer very often in Nigeria; in truth, we find it difficult and embarrassing to explain such situations to our patients.” Mr Dajel urged the federal government to treat snake bite as a national emergency and take urgent steps to make the anti-snake venom available.
Golu regretted that fake drugs were being sold to desperate victims, causing more deaths and deformities, and appealed to the federal, states and local governments to intervene by committing funds for the purchase of ASV.
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