The rising number of people dying from snakebites nationwide has heightened the calls for local Anti-Snake Venom (ASV) vaccine production.

Reports from major snakebite treatment centres indicate that the incidences of the attacks have continued to rise, with many victims unable to survive.

Correspondents who visited major snakebite treatment centres in Kaltungo, Gombe State, and Zamko in Langtang, Plateau State, found that the cases had risen with the farming season at its peak.

The worst hit are the farmers who clash with the snakes in the fields and nomads that move inside the forests with their cattle.

While some patients die in hospitals and specialist snakebite treatment centres, others die in the hands of herbalists, and some at home while trying to manage the situation.

Abubakar Ballah, chief medical director of the Kaltungo Snakebite Treatment and Research Centre, said an average of 11 patients are received daily.

The situation is similar in Zamko Comprehensive Medical Centre, a medical outpost of Jos University Teaching Hospital, and Bambur medical centre, Karim Lamido in Taraba, where even more scary figures are reported.

Medics at the various centres blamed the rising number of death cases on the lack of ASV required to treat bites from snakes in Nigeria.

Among such snakes are Carpet Vipers, Cobra and Puff Adder.

Nandul Durfa, managing director of Echitab Study Group, which supplies ASV drugs to Nigeria, blamed the current acute shortage on the lack of supply.

He said the drugs are produced in Liverpool, U.K. and Costa Rica and imported into Nigeria at an exorbitant cost because of the tough and cumbersome processes involved.

Mr Durfa, a former CMD of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, said a vial of the ASV drug costs £59 at production.

“In view of the poor value of the naira, the drug gets so costly for the victims that are mostly the poor farmers and cattle rearers,” he said.

He said some state governors had often purchased the drugs to assist victims in their domains but regretted that there were moments the drug could be out of stock, leaving everyone helpless.

Mr Durfa said Nigeria must produce the ASV drug locally to tackle the situation.

He particularly regretted a recent situation where a female student at the University of Yola died of snakebite and declared that such death and many others were “quite unnecessary”.

He appealed to the federal government to critically look into the need to produce the ASV drug locally to end the scourge of deaths from snakebites across the country. 

(NAN)