Victims of snakebites are flooding treatment centres across the country as heat forces the reptiles out of their holes into bushes, farms, roads and peoples homes in search of fresh air.

States worst hit include Gombe, Plateau, Borno, Benue, Taraba, Nasarawa and Bauchi, with herders, farmers and rural dwellers mostly the victims.

In visits to some snake treatment centres, most of the patients were on the floor with medics complaining that facilities were being overstretched.

With a vial of the Echitab drugs – the brand of ASV that cures bites from snakes in Nigeria – going for more than N55,000, stakeholders have heightened calls on the federal government to support the Echitab Study Group in Nigeria to produce the vaccine locally to lower production cost.

At Snakebites Treatment and Research Centre, Kaltungo in Gombe, Sulaiman Mohammed, its principal medical officer, said that about 300 patients had been admitted from January to date.

He attributed the sharp rise in the number of cases to the hot weather.

Mr Mohammed said that some were treated and discharged while four deaths had been recorded .

Giving a breakdown, he said that 69 patients were admitted in January, 79 in February and more than 135 in March.

He explained that most of the victims were bitten by carpet vipers, “the snake that bites without warning; once you are close to it, it will strike.

“Other snakes like puff adder and cobra will show you the sign and will not bite unless provoked. If you are smart, you leave the place quickly,” he explained.

He said that though the cost of Anti-Snakebite Venom were high, the centre currently has some ASV supplied to it by the North East Development Commission.

Mr Mohammed listed some of the challenges the centre was confronted with to include inadequate manpower as the number of patients far outnumber the staff strength.

Another challenge was the late arrival of patients for medical attention and herbalists exploiting victims.

At the Zamko Comprehensive Medical Centre, a specialist snakebite treatment centre in Langtang, Plateau State, NAN met a similar situation of rising cases of snakebites.

At the rural medical outfit owned by the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) Nyam Azi, a medical officer, said that a vial of ASV, which cost between N23,000 and N25,000 in 2021, had risen to N50,000 or even more.

Mr Azi revealed that the health facility records more than 20 cases per week and attributed the high figure to the heat season, usually one of the peak periods of snakebite cases in the area.

He said that victims come from Benue, Taraba and Nasarawa States.

Reacting to the situation, Abdulsalam Nasidi, Chairman, Echitab Study Group in Nigeria, said that a vial of ASV costs N55,000 and blamed that on the rising cost of foreign exchange.

(NAN)