Massive deaths from snakebites have become a recurrent decimal in Nigeria.
The casualty figures usually get more staggering during the heat when the cold-blooded reptiles are forced out of their hiding places in search of fresh air.
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.
It is also the time herdsmen in the north move into thicker forests in their search for greener fields in view of the harsh realities of the dry season.
Records from various snakebite treatment centres across the country have also indicated that the figures go up during the harvest season, especially for crops like rice and yam.
According to a medic at the Zamko Comprehensive Medical Centre, Langtang, a snakebite treatment point in Plateau, rats go to yam farms to eat yam, snakes go to the farm to wait for the rats. When farmers reach their farms for the harvest, they get bitten. During one of such peak snakebite periods last year, 250 victims died within three weeks in Plateau and Gombe states.
The figure represented the number of confirmed deaths in two snake treatment centres – General Hospital, Kaltungo, Gombe State, and Zamko Comprehensive Medical Centre. More victims were confirmed to have died at herbal treatment centres within the period. States worst hit by the menace include Gombe, Bauchi, Taraba, Adamawa, Plateau, Borno, Nasarawa and Benue.
Nandul Durfa, Managing Director, Echitab Study Ltd Guarantee, the outfit handling the collection and distribution of Echitab Anti-Snake Venom (ASV), from their production centres in United Kingdom and Costa Rica, says that the situation has been particularly bad this year because of a paucity of the ASV.
“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 said that his outfit was expecting the next supply of 2,000 vials from Micropharm Ltd in Wales, UK, and another consignment from ICP University in Costa Rica, on April 22.
“Clearly, the nation is in trouble at this peak period of snakebite. The quantity in the store has proved too little to meet the demand. The situation is frightening.
“Already, the snakebite treatment centre at the General Hospital, Kaltungo, receives an average of 16 cases a day. That centre received more than 3,086 cases last year. The situation is even worse at the Zamko medical centre,” he said.
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.
